Pakistan govt cites possibility of war with India, urges Supreme Court to postpone elections

Islamabad: The defence ministry of Pakistan has mentioned a host of reasons including threats from India and insurgent attacks in its appeal to the country’s Supreme Court urging the postponement of elections.

In its report to Pakistan’s Supreme Court, the defence ministry cited the possibility of an all-out war with India. The ministry also feared a rise in the activities of the Indian spy agency R&AW and an increase in attacks by the Pakistani Taliban and Baloch groups if elections are held in the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces of Pakistan.

Islamic State (ISIS) fighters returning to Pakistan from other countries is also a cause for concern, the report added.

The report was submitted to Pakistan’s Supreme Court along with an application calling for the withdraw of its election-date order.

According to Pakistani publication ‘The Dawn’, the report claimed that elections in Punjab province may exacerbate the fuel fault lines over ethnic conflict, water disputes, and other issues in Pakistan which could play into the hands of India’s intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW).

According to the report, Punjab may become unstable due to the tense atmosphere there. It also said that top leaders of various political parties have been the target of multiple threat alerts, particularly in Punjab.

The defence ministry went on to claim that if terrorist attacks do take place, it might produce unrest and further polarise the political landscape, which could result in instability and collapse similar to what occurred following the killing of former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

The possibility of clashes between political workers of different political parties had increased exponentially, and could complicate law and order situations and possibly be conducive for terrorists, it said. This was due to the highly charged political climate in Punjab and other parts of the country generally, as well as the element of violence recently introduced in politics.

According to the research, the country’s security situation over the past few years has required the simultaneous deployment of numerous armed forces personnel on both its eastern and western borders.

In addition, despite an agreement on a cease-fire, India continued to put Pakistan’s ability to respond in jeopardy by routinely violating the Line of Control (LOC) and international borders.

In addition, the report noted that elements like the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) had carried out numerous attacks against the security forces along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan with alleged support of the Taliban government in Afghanistan.

According to the report, the Punjab province of Pakistan had experienced a new wave of terrorism, with 150 danger alerts being received between January 2022 and April 2023. It claimed that 78 of these threats had been avoided by counterterrorism or intelligence-based activities, but eight had come to pass.

It said sleeper cells of terrorist elements were active in Punjab, especially south Punjab, and even in Islamabad, as evident from the high-profile attacks

Besides, several militants belonging to the self-styled Islamic State (IS) group and other outfits were also returning to Pakistan from Syria, Yemen and the Middle East, it said.

According to the assessment, India’s dominance in the “global great game” would continue to harm Pakistan.

It added that both internal instability and external aggression posed threats to Pakistan, noting that both were connected “since the internal chaos invites external aggression.”

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