Days after the change of government in Pakistan, authorities have launched a crackdown on what it thinks is a systematic online smear campaign targeting heads of the judiciary and the army by the supporters of ousted former prime minister Imran Khan. The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) has arrested several people, local media reports have said.

The judiciary and the Pakistan military —the latter not only enjoy but also control a favorable narrative on social media, especially on Twitter— became the target of Imran Khan’s supporters who blame General Qamar Javed Bajwa, Pakistan Army chief, for not coming to Khan’s rescue and saving his government from what they believe was a "foreign conspiracy" of regime change.

Over a dozen people were arrested by the FIA, reported Dawn. Perhaps, for the first time, thousands of posts, critical of the army and its chief—mostly by Pakistani nationals—appeared on Twitter and other social media sites.

Over 2000 accounts, sympathetic to the Khan’s party PTI, are believed to be part of an organized campaign, according to the cyber-crime cell of the FIA. More arrests of online activists of the PTI are expected in the coming days.

Officials suspect the campaign is being directed by the PTI leadership. On the other hand, the PTI has moved a petition in the Islamabad High Court challenging the crackdown on its activists.

The crisis, which was purely political in nature, is being sought to be painted as a national security crisis by former prime minister Khan, whose supporters range from the lower-income group to the upper-middle-class urban elite for whom Imran Khan, a former World Cup-winning cricket captain, remains a folk hero. The military also seems unnerved by this growing receptive audience, not just in the ranks of Pakistani civil society but also within its own rank and file, which could risk its credibility.

Asfandyar Mir, a fellow at the United State Institute of Peace (USIP), a US government think tank, noted in a recent report, “In the near term, [General] Bajwa must contend with a serious possibility of backlash from within the military over Khan’s ouster.”

“Many in the officer corps appear sympathetic to Khan's populist worldview and share his general disdain for political leaders of the new governing alliance,” Mir, who is an expert on political violence in South Asia, was quoted as saying in the USIP report.

Significantly, the statement released by the Pakistan military on Tuesday, just after the meeting of senior commanders, further bolsters the aforementioned possibility.

“The forum [the military]took note of the recent propaganda campaign by some quarters to malign [the] Pakistan Army and create division between the institution and society." The ISPR, the media wing of the military, said after the meeting of formation commanders chaired by General Bajwa. "The national security of Pakistan is sacrosanct. Pakistan Army has always stood by the state institutions to guard it and always will, without any compromise,” the statement added.

The military’s stated neutrality in the recent political crisis is also being interpreted as siding with the old political elites. Of them, many have had a record of being overly critical of the establishment.

Importantly, to allay any perception of division with its rank, the military said in the statement that commanders expressed "complete confidence in the leadership’s well-considered stance to uphold the Constitution and rule of law at all costs.”  

(SAM)