Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Tuesday met the Chief of Army Staff Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa for the first time after being elected to office.
According to a press release from the prime minister’s office, Gen Bajwa paid a visit to the newly elected premier at the PM House and discussed “professional matters pertaining to the Pakistan Army”.
Applauding the Pakistan Army’s achievements in Operation Raddul Fassad and Operation Khyber IV, Abbasi said that “the entire nation is proud of the sacrifices rendered by security personnel in ridding the motherland from the menace of terrorism”.
Abbasi was elected after Nawaz Sharif was disqualified by the Supreme Court in the Panama Papers case. A five-member apex bench had found Sharif “unfit to hold office”, ruling that he had been “dishonest to the parliament and the courts in not disclosing his employment in the Dubai-based Capital FZE company in his 2013 nomination papers.”
Last month, Director General Inter-Services Public Relations Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor had clarified that there was “no direct army involvement” in the Supreme Court-sanctioned joint investigation team (JIT) probing the Sharif family’s wealth in the Panamagate case.
“The JIT was made by the Supreme Court. Two of its members belong to the Inter-Services Intelligence and Military Intelligence. It is a subjudice case, and it will go to court,” he had said in a press conference prior to the verdict.
“There is no direct army involvement in the JIT,” he had asserted. “Political talk is in the political domain.”-Agencies
