Daily Times

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has called for an investigation into retired General Qamar Javed Bajwa’s alleged violations of his oath of office as army chief. In a letter to President Arif Alvi, Khan listed four instances in which Bajwa purportedly violated the Constitution, citing a February 9th column by journalist Javed Chaudhry that quoted the former army chief. Shireen Mazari, a leader in Khan’s party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), announced the move on Twitter.

Khan wrote that Bajwa “admitted to journalist Javed Chaudhry that ‘we’ considered Imran Khan [to be] dangerous to the country if he continued to stay in power.” He then questioned who Bajwa referred to as “we” and who gave him the power to decide that an elected prime minister was “supposedly a ‘danger to the country if he continued to stay in power’.” Khan asserted that only the people through elections have the power to elect a prime minister and that taking that right on oneself is a clear violation of the oath given in the Constitution.

In addition, Khan cited Bajwa’s alleged admission that he managed to get a National Accountability Bureau (NAB) case against Shaukat Tarin dismissed, claiming that this revealed that the NAB was under Bajwa’s control. The former prime minister then went on to mention a YouTube vlog in which journalist Aftab Iqbal claimed that Bajwa told him he had tapes of then-PM Imran Khan’s conversations with him. Khan called this a “serious violation” of Bajwa’s oath as well as of his fundamental human rights.

Lastly, Khan referred to Bajwa’s alleged violation of his oath when he publicly went against the then government’s policy of maintaining neutrality in the Russia-Ukraine war. The former premier claimed that Bajwa did this at an international conference in Islamabad on April 2, 2022, and that the government policy was arrived at after developing a consensus among all stakeholders.

Citing the Constitution, Khan reminded President Alvi that it was his “constitutional duty as President and as Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces to take immediate action and institute an inquiry.” Khan demanded that an inquiry be initiated to “establish whether such grave violations of the Constitution and oath of Office under the Constitution have taken place.”