The Pakistan Army elite has sounded the warning bell for the beleaguered Nawaz Sharif government. At the Corps Commanders meeting on Friday, the animosity towards the Prime Minister and his team was evident.
The terse statement that came out made it clear that the powerful “corner-plot-walas” blame the PMO for the leak to Dawn. They said that the article is a breach of national security and termed Cyril Almeida’s information as “false and fabricated.”
However, they did not clarify why a false and fabricated story could endanger national security.
The Army gave the Sharif government five days to find out the source that “fed” the information to Almeida about the crucial October 3rd meeting.
Almeida’s report had minute details and it was later backed by the editor of Dawn who said that the facts were checked and rechecked. During the five days that the Sharif government had to come up with a plausible explanation, the PMO bungled by first putting Almeida on the Exit Control List and then withdrawing it.
It fielded interior minister Chaudhury Nisar to awkwardly explain its stand.
Meanwhile, almost the entire international public opinion favoured Almeida and press freedom.
Whoever planted the information on Dawn wanted it to appear that Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shahbaz Sharif, the chief minister of Punjab province, were knights in shining armour wanting to put terrorists behind bars but it was the Army that was preventing it.
As one journalist on a TV show said, “Inki capacity Chotu gang ko pakadne kii hai nahi, yeh kahaan sey Jaish ko pakdenge Gullu Butt they couldn’t catch who had one gun, they had to call the army.” The reference is to small time gangsters, who are unafraid of the civilian governments in Pakistan.
The insinuation was that it was preposterous suggestion in the Almeida report that Shahbaz Sharif had the gumption to have said what he did about the Army protecting terrorists who Nawaz and Shahbaz wanted to crackdown on.
But TV commentators in Pakistan are now deducing that what actually happened was that after the success of Zarb-e-Azb, the military offensive against the Taliban in North Waziristan, and similar crackdown in Sindh, the army was keen to move into the Punjab province.
