Battlelines drawn between Imran Niazi and Gen Asim Munir in Pakistan

At present it is Niazi versus the Pakistan Army as PTI chief’s Zaman Park residence in Lahore is under Punjab Police siege.

Updated on: May 19, 2023, 14:00:59 IST

By Shishir Gupta

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After the supporters of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf chief Imran Khan Niazi targeted Pakistan Army and its spearhead institutions in Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa on May 9, the Shehbaz Sharif government is likely to pass a resolution on the Cabinet to try the rioters and their leaders under the Army Act and the Official Secret Act.

Pakistan Army Chief Gen Asim Munir and PTI Chief Imran Niazi are daggers drawn at each other.

With Pakistan President and apex judiciary overtly revealing their soft corner towards Niazi and tying the hands of Sharif government, the Pakistan Army under General Asim Munir has started the process of dismantling the PTI and isolating their mercurial leader in the past days. Feeling the heat from the Army and the ISI, described once by former PM Benazir Bhutto as a state within the state, several powerful party office-bearers close to Niazi have either left the party or are in the process of doing so in the coming days.

Read more: Will Pak Army Chief Gen Asim Munir stand up?

At present it is Niazi versus the Pakistan Army as PTI chief’s Zaman Park residence in Lahore is under Punjab Police siege since May 18 and the supporters, who were thronging in the area since May 16, have long gone away. Barring the menacing Punjab police, Zaman Park bears a deserted look according to media reports from Pakistan.

While Niazi is now making conciliatory gestures towards the Army, the Rawalpindi GHQ has decided to take on the PTI and plans are afoot to divide the party into various factions minus Niazi. According to Pakistan watchers, former member of National Assembly of Pakistan and business magnate Jahangir Tareen has been activated to form a strong faction comprising majority of Members National Assembly and Members of Pakistan Assembly for playing a major political role in the post-Niazi set-up. It is understood that PTI leaders like Pervez Khattak and Asad Qaiser will play the lead role in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, while Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Fawad Chaudhary and Pervez Elahi will be the points person in Punjab. Faisal Wavda, who left the PTI many months ago, will be considered for a future role in Sindh.

Clearly the battle-lines have been drawn between Niazi and the Pakistan Army with support from the Sharif government and it is a fight to the finish. If General Asim Munir cannot hold Niazi and his supporters accountable for the May 9 chaos, then Rawalpindi GHQ is losing both its power and credibility before the people and its allies in the Middle-East.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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