Someone needs to hold out the olive branch.
A momentous week has ended. During the last few days, events in Pakistan remained the top news of many media outlets, especially in India. Analysts sat for hours on various talk shows, discussing the situation in the country and predicting the outcome. Some programs even managed to achieve the highest ratings.
The drama ended after the former prime minister, Imran Khan, succeeded in getting a blanket relief from the Islamabad High Court. However, it was not as simple as it seemed to be. There were some antics before Imran set out for Lahore after waiting for several hours.
The high court ordered that the PTI chief could not be arrested till May 17 and even granted him stay in the Toshakhana case until the second week of June. Meanwhile, Imran reached Lahore in the early hours, to a thunderous reception. People lined the roads through which his caravan passed and raised slogans in his favor.
In this entire scenario, all eyes were on the Pakistan Army. There were talks of emergency and also martial law. According to reports, Defense Minister Khawaja Asif had proposed imposing an emergency in the country, but the coalition partners in the government – Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F), and the Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M) – opposed the idea.
So serious were the rumors that Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb had to issue a statement to refute them. She denied that any decision regarding the imposition of an emergency in the country had been taken by the federal cabinet.
The same was the case with the army. Its media wing, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), also had to issue a denial. In fact, it had to go a step further and refute talks about orders being disobeyed and resignation.
ISPR Director General Maj Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry Sharif ruled out any possibility of martial law being imposed in the country in the wake of the prevailing unrest in the country. He rejected news on social media that some senior army officials had resigned or disobeyed Army Chief Gen Asim Munir.
On a TV show, Maj Gen Sharif said that Gen Asim Munir and the senior army leadership supported democracy and there was no question of martial law. He stressed that the armed forces were united in the face of internal disturbance and external conspiracies.
On the other hand, Imran Khan continued his tirade, alleging that the army chief was behind his arrest on May 9. Whatever has happened over the last few days is nothing less than unfortunate. The society stands polarized, the army is being maligned, and the economy is in tatters.
Now is the time to shift from confrontation mode to a reconciliatory one. And we have to do it if we want to move ahead. Political turmoil has become a norm in our country, and this needs to be changed. Be it the PML-N, PPP, or even PTI, whoever comes to power should be allowed to complete their term. Stop interruptions.
