Opinion: India’s best option in Pakistan

Neither Imran Khan nor the PJP are capable of averting the nuclear threat.only the army can do it

Amitava Mukherjee

India has been a scapegoat for part of Pakistan’s “establishment”. Fatima Jinnah is known as the “surrogate” of India. After her it was Ayub Khan’s turn. In 1965, there was a war with India, but he was slandered as an Indian agent, and Yashiya Khan could not escape the heavy hammer. He was blacklisted as an Indian agent because he lost the 1971 war that tore Pakistan apart. Pervez Musharraf and Nawaz Sharif also had to suffer the same design stigma. Influential sections of the “establishment” are always trying to stir public sentiment against fallen heroes.

worry about the world

Now, the Pakistani army, the most important part of this “establishment”, is deeply divided on the issue of supporting or opposing Imran Khan.no wonder

Parts of the bureaucratic and judicial elite who had earlier denigrated Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan and Pervez Musharraf now sided with Imran Khan.

Pakistani intellectuals, however, assert that Imran and his “Pirni” wife Rabibi Bush have penetrated every level of the military. The play is currently only in its first phase. If there is a future rebellion within the Northern Army, it will be a bad omen for the world.

But why should the world worry about a possible insurgency in the Pakistani army? The reason is that the possibility of nuclear arsenals falling into the hands of Islamic terrorists is high.

So, with the specter in mind, the world, especially India, should look to the unity and cohesion of the Pakistani military, as in an environment where Pakistan is rapidly moving towards enviable status, two other vital institutions – the executive and the judiciary – are already seriously ill The broken failure state. The military is also responsible for this situation, but given the current situation, all eyes are now on the nuclear-armed safe “deep state”.

nuclear device

The military has taken precautions. Some 8,000 personnel are employed to protect various nuclear facilities. Through a rigorous selection process, most of these personnel come from the Punjab state of Pakistan, as the Punjabi part of the Pakistani army is considered the least influenced by radical Islamist ideology. Facilities have multiple layers of physical protection. Production and refurbishment locations are then separated from storage locations. Finally, there is the virtual location of missiles used to confuse Islamic terrorists.

But there are also many loopholes. Fearful of being overtaken by India, Pakistan has built most of its nuclear facilities in the north and west of the country, many of which are areas controlled by the Taliban Movement of Pakistan (TTP) and Al Qaeda. Then there is the possibility of internal destruction. Don’t forget the case of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, who was arrested in 2004 for orchestrating the largest nuclear proliferation network in history.

Two other senior scientists from the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood and Chaudhry Abdul Majeed, traveled to Afghanistan in 2000 and again shortly before 9/11 to meet Osama bin Laden. Their efforts speak for themselves.

So the security system is porous. Islamic terrorists know this. Any division within the military will fuel the terrorists. They have tried many times to take control of the nuclear facility. They tried to seize the nuclear missile storage site in Sargoda. Then, a suicide bomber struck Pakistan’s nuclear air base in Kamra. TTP suicide bombers again blew up several entry points to one of Pakistan’s main nuclear weapons assembly sites at Camp Wa.

Now, this is the gravest danger the world faces from Pakistan. Neither Imran Khan nor the PJP or any other institution has the power to stop this threat. Only the military can do it. If the military itself splits, a disgruntled section could hand over the keys to the nuclear base to terrorists.

Divide the army

Now let’s see how things are in the military. The newly appointed army chief Asim Munir is a Sunni. Some military officers have underlying doubts about the extent to which Munir can stand up to TTP, the main Sunni-dominated Islamist terrorist group in Pakistan. To this end, former Army Chief of Staff Kamal Javid Bajwa appointed Shiite Lieutenant General Al-Azhar Abbas as Chief of General Staff (CGS), with the aim of handing over the post of Army Chief of Staff to the the latter. In order to conduct full-scale military operations against the Sunni-dominated TTP in due course under the direct supervision of Abbas. But it has created deep rifts within the military.

Over the years, Imran Khan has prospered among the top ranks of the army, and his wife, Bushra Bibi, has also groomed the wives of top military officers, bureaucrats and judicial officials. Imran is said to have thousands of sympathizers in the army. This became apparent on 9 May when supporters of the Pakistan Insaf Movement (PTI) vandalized the residence of Army Corps Commander Lieutenant General Salman Fayaz Ghani in Lahore. Surprisingly, security is completely lax inside and outside the Legion Commander’s residence. It can be pointed out bluntly that Ghani’s wife is rumored to belong to the group of high-ranking government wives who support Imran Khan.

In this case, trialing Imran Khan under the Army Act could have a knock-on effect affecting the army. Its effects may not be felt now. But social media circles allegedly backed by PTI supporters are spreading different rumors. According to such rumors, Lieutenant General Sahir Shamshad Mirza, the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, may try to oust Asim Munir from the position of army chief of staff.

However, instability in Pakistan’s military is unwelcome in at least one respect – for the security of the country’s nuclear arsenal.