Islamabad: Pakistan’s military has conveyed to former PM Nawaz Sharif to stop accusing former generals and retired apex court judges of involvement in a “conspiracy” to oust him from office in 2017.
Since announcing his return home from London, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) exiled chief has taken ex-army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa, former spymaster Lt Gen Faiz Hameed, and former judges Saqib Nisar and Asif Saeed Khosa head on, slamming them for “political engineering” to bring incarcerated ex-PM Imran Khan, their blue-eyed boy then, to power.
The renewal of such criticism has caused unease in the establishment and PML-N’s ranks. The Army, reports suggest, has communicated to Nawaz through Shehbaz its displeasure at his fresh bout of criticism.
Speculation has also swirled that interim PM Anwaarul Haq Kakar, considered close to both Nawaz and the Army, headed to London for a possible “secret meeting” with the exiled leader. Ahead of his departure from New York, Kakar parried most questions about such talks, only saying the former PM would be “treated under the laws of Pakistan”.
With a sympathetic military leadership seen as helping him, several observers believe Nawaz’s abrupt change in stance is merely political rhetoric to grab votes in the upcoming elections. “If it’s something more than rhetoric, it will have consequences,” said analyst Nazrul Islam.