LAHORE / ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan on Wednesday expre­ssed the hope that the new top brass of Pakistan Army would work to end the prevailing trust deficit between the state and the nation.

The expectation came in a tweet that Mr Khan wrote to congratulate Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Gen Asim Munir and Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee Gen Sahir Shamshad Mirza.

Citing Pakistan’s founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s excerpt from his Aug 14, 1947 speech, Imran Khan reminded the military the role it had in a democratic nation.

“We hope new military leadership will work to end prevailing trust deficit that has built up in last eight months between the nation and the state,” he said, adding that strength of a state was derived from its people.

Mr Khan then reproduced the Quaid-i-Azam’s quote as, “Do not forget that the armed forces are the servants of the people and you do not make national policy; it is we, the civilians, who decide these issues and it is your duty to carry out these tasks with which you are entrusted”.

The PTI chairman’s congratulation came a day after both Gen Munir and Gen Mirza separately called on President Dr Arif Alvi at Aiwan-i-Sadr in Islamabad on Wednesday.

In response to the tweet, PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz took a jibe at the PTI chairman.

In a tweet, she asked, “[You] have the audacity to talk about trust deficit?” She then commented, “[You] think ppl [are] fools?”

Ms Nawaz said Mr Khan had a “selective memory” but not people at large. “[You] colluded with certain elements of the estab[lishment],” she alleged, adding they raised and fed you like their Godson. “Now [you] beg for their unconstitutional interference & when it is denied [you] call them traitors.”

Separately, while addressing a presser after a cabinet meeting in Islamabad, Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb asked Imran Khan not to use the Quaid-i-Azam’s name for his “nefarious agenda” because, she alleged, the PTI chief always did what was forbidden in the Quaid’s teachings.

She said the Quaid-i-Azam had never said anything which was exhibited by Mr Khan.

Published in Dawn, December 1st, 2022