ADDRESSING the 235th Corps Commanders’ Conference, Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa dwelt at length on the dynamics of regional security environment and stressed the need of protecting the country from 5th generation warfare and hybrid applications used by anti-Pakistan elements against Pakistan’s vital interests. He emphasised enhanced combat readiness in the domain of conventional war and keeping abreast modern techniques for defeating the enemy in unconventional onslaught. The COAS appreciated the formation readiness of the army and lauded its services that it has always rendered in the aid of civil power for the maintenance of law and order, internal security, containing the spread of Covid-19 pandemic and support provided during natural calamities such as floods and recurring locust infestations. People of the country have all along acknowledged this role of armed forces of Pakistan. As usual, they have done a commendable job in recue and relief operation during the recent floods.
India has adopted multifaceted strategy against Pakistan in its ambition to keep the region destabalised. For the past several years Pakistan’s quest for peace has not been reciprocated as ceasefire violations on the Line of Control are regularly being made. It is using the soil of Afghanistan to make militancy resurgent in the merged districts of former FATA. Incidents of terrorism that have occurred during the past few months bear testimony to it. Likewise, it is fuelling and financing insurgency in the restive Baluchistan Province.
Tools of print, electronic and social media are used to malign and discredit the state institution s of Pakistan; botched attempts are made to ignite ethnic identities and centrifugal tendencies. Unfortunately, print media and social media outlets of the country are discretely used to create and inculcate negative thinking in the minds of the educated youth. In the past one media outlet was used to bring misnomer to an important state institution, while the services of other were utilised to target the same institution in a bid to buttress the Indian narrative that portrayed Pakistan being the epicenter for exporting terrorism. Ironically, the political leadership sitting on saddle of government at that time had no interest to build counter narrative, against the Indian one that it successfully marketed at the international diplomatic forums.
