Pak govt action against opposition leaders result of 'deep rot' that set in since Imran Khan assumed office: European think tank

Pakistan government's recent charges against former premier Nawaz Sharif and Pakistan occupied Kashmir so-called prime minister Raja Farooq Haider are the result of the "deep rot" that has set in ever since Imran Khan "selected by the military establishment to act as its proxy", assumed office in 2018, according to a European think tank.

Pakistan government's recent charges against former premier Nawaz Sharif and Pakistan occupied Kashmir so-called prime minister Raja Farooq Haider are the result of the "deep rot" that has set in ever since Imran Khan "selected by the military establishment to act as its proxy", assumed office in 2018, according to a European think tank. The European Foundation For South Asian Studies, in a commentary, said that the panic has engulfed the military establishment with "its extra-constitutional political role and its near-monopoly of State resources coming under unprecedented direct attack by the opposition parties is also palpable".

"What is intriguing, however, is how Raja Farooq Haider, the 'Prime Minister' of a portion of the erstwhile Princely State of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) that Pakistan had forcibly grabbed can conceivably be implicated in treason against a country that he is, as admitted by Pakistan itself, not even a citizen or a resident of," the ESFSAS commented. Recently, a sedition law was filed against former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, his daughter Maryam, and Raja Mohammad Farooq Ahmed Khan on October 1.

A First Information Report (FIR) was registered on the basis of a complaint lodged by a local resident in Shahdra police station against the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) leader on the charges of criminal conspiracy for the "provocative speeches" he made in London to "defame Pakistan's institutions". Sharif's daughter, Khan and three retired generals among 40 PML(N) leaders have also been named in the FIR. The EFSAS indicated that the recent action by Pakistan government against big opposition figures is done to silence opposition which has formed a united front for a "political revolution" to "bring law and order" in the country

"While the list of the accused is long, and the nature of the crimes that they are alleged to have committed grave, the real target of the military establishment in getting a member of Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party to file such a case is the resurgent Nawaz Sharif, whose battle cry delivered from as far afield as London has created quite a flutter in Rawalpindi. His high-pitched call of 20 September to the All Party Conference to end once and for all the reign of subjugation and exploitation by the military establishment," The EFSAS noted. The think tank said that a few Pakistani commentators, who have been brave enough to disregard the strict restrictions that have been put in place in Pakistan on what the media can write about and what it cannot, have commented on the damage that the treason charge on Haider would do to the psyche of the people of PoK, who already feel insecure in their own land.

"The present charge of treason has shaken Raja Farooq Haider. Already vulnerable because of the total dominance of the Pakistani military establishment over the territory that he ostensibly and legally leads, Haider, tweeted earlier this week that as a 'Kashmiri', he was worried about his future now that he has illegally and unfairly been accused of treason," the EFSAS noted. "The fear-borne desperation in the Pakistani military establishment that has been brought about by Nawaz's broadside against it has also had the seemingly inadvertent impact of causing the establishment to hopelessly expose the colonial mindset with which it views PoK, and the utter disdain with which it treats its 'Prime Minister', leave aside its common residents," it added. (ANI)

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