Political interventions Ouster of Nawaz Sharif as Prime Minister The former prime minister of Pakistan,
Nawaz Sharif alleged that Bajwa was behind his
disqualification from the prime minister's office by putting pressure on the judiciary and the
Supreme Court. He also alleged that Bajwa was also involved in rigging the general election. Subsequently,
Muhammad Safdar Awan, son-in-law of
Nawaz Sharif was arrested allegedly through pressure in the aftermath of
enforced disappearance of
Sindh Police's provincial senior police officer Mushtaq Mahar. According to Shehbaz Sharif, in 2018 General Bajwa, DG-ISI
Naveed Mukhtar and DGCI
Faiz Hameed offered him Prime-ministership in return for abandoning Nawaz Sharif.
Zahid Hussain in his
Dawn opinion column of 21 August 2024, stated that in 2016 when a journalist in a press briefing held by Bajwa asked him what would happen if the Prime Minister was removed, Bajwa responded; "Nothing will happen," adding "Nothing happened even when we hanged
Bhutto." The supporters claimed that Bajwa conspired to remove Khan from office along with the country's opposition parties.
Rana Sanaullah claimed that the
Pakistan Muslim League (N) (PML-N) was promised governments in federation and provinces as well as the removal of Imran Khan in exchange for vote for Bajwa's extension.
2018 Election rigging allegations On 25 July 2018,
general elections were held in Pakistan. They have been alleged by some as the ‘dirtiest’ elections in Pakistan history with army under Bajwa being accused of manipulating the elections and engineering a victory for Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf over the army's Pakistan Muslim League (N). The Election Commission of Pakistan denied the claim; the Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN), acknowledged that there had been significant improvements in the election process, but noted "It does not augur well for the ECP to reject the concerns of major political parties ... without conducting a probe into the matter, as otherwise the country may spiral into phase of political and public protest and outcry that inhibits political stability", while the European Union Election Observation Mission acknowledged that no election rigging had been observed during the election day in general, although the latter did find a "lack of equality" in the elections. Despite the opposition's allegations, it voluntarily decided not to boycott parliament. Recounts were conducted in a total of 94 constituencies by the Election Commission, after which Khan's PTI emerged as the largest party in the National Assembly, winning 115 seats. According to
Najam Sethi, "Thousands of bags will be opened and hundreds of thousands of ballots recounted and thumbprints matched. Thousands of
Form 45 will be scrutinized. But none of this huffing and puffing will bring Imran Khan’s house down because he is protected and propped up by the
Miltablishment."
Assets beyond the means In the waning days of his tenure, details of Bajwa and his family's tax and assets documents were
leaked to the press by journalist
Ahmad Noorani on his blog
FactFocus, alleging an increase of nearly Rs. 13 billion
Pakistani rupees in the general's family's assets throughout his term as army chief. Assets included an international business, multiple foreign properties and capital, as well as commercial plazas and properties, farmhouses, and residential real estate throughout the major cities of Pakistan. The report has also alleged that the father-in-law of Bajwa's son has similarly amassed wealth, both in Pakistan and abroad, throughout his tenure as army chief. Following the publication of the article, the media platform
FactFocus faced government blackouts in Pakistan.
Reporters Without Borders condemned the move, calling it "unacceptable in a mature democracy that a perfectly sourced and careful investigative report about an issue of considerable public interest for Pakistanis should be brutally censored in this way". Although army spokesmen rejected the claims as "baseless" "propaganda", the country's tax bureau began probing over a dozen government officers, and suspended two high-ranking officers, both in connection to the tax claims, The Pakistani government declared the tax leak by Noorani as illegal, and announced that they had tracked down the persons responsible for what they termed as a leak − contrary to the claims of army spokesmen. In December 2022, the federal tax bureau formally charged three government officers for unauthorized access to the tax records of Mahnoor Sabir, daughter-in-law of Bajwa, and illegally sharing that information. Following the announcement of the government's investigations, Noorani claimed that the government of Pakistan, in particular the finance minister
Ishaq Dar (who had labeled the data mentioned in the article an "illegal and unwarranted leakage"
Alleged human rights violations Conservative Party of Canada parliamentarian,
Tom Kmiec criticised Bajwa for his involvement in "toppling two governments in Pakistan" and claimed the Pakistan Army under him was "involved in human rights abuses and had links with terrorist groups."
Court martial of a civilian Syed Hassan Askari was tried and imprisoned under
Court martial proceedings for writing a letter opposing the extension of Bajwas' term.
Abduction and torture of Azam Swati Azam Swati, a legislator of the
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, claimed to have been stripped and tortured in state custody after his remarks on twitter on Bajwa's alleged assets beyond means.
Death of Arshad Sharif Following General Bajwa's retirement, the mother of slain journalist
Arshad Sharif requested that the Chief Justice of Pakistan formally charge Bajwa, among other military officers, for the "targeted, premeditated, planned and calculated murder" of her son. She claime members of the military's Public Relations division began threatening Sharif after he emerged as a critic of Bajwa following the success of the vote-of-no-confidence against Imran Khan, particularly in a program called
Woh Kon Tha, aired on
ARY News, in which Sharif insinuated Bajwa had a hand in overthrowing his democratically elected Prime Minister.
Recognition of Israel New Age reported that following the ouster of
Imran Khan, General Bajwa's pro-Israel stance appeared to take shape after the
Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), backed by Bajwa and the military establishment, assumed power. In May 2022, a group of Pakistani-Americans visited Israel. The delegation sponsored by
Sharaka, included Ahmed Qureshi, an anchor from the state-owned
Pakistan Television Corporation, who met with the Israeli president. According to the
Hindustan Times, citing
Israel Hayom, it was claimed in 2021
Zulfi Bukhari traveled to Ben Gurion airport and then Tel Aviv and "conveyed a message" from
Imran Khan and Gen Bajwa "to then Israeli spy chief
Yossi Cohen," the article claiming it to be the result of “heavy pressure from the UAE”. Bukhari denied the visit, stating "DID NOT go to Israel. Funny bit is Pakistani paper says I went to Israel based on 'Israeli news source' & Israeli paper says I went to Israel based on a 'Pakistani source'". Earlier, in a letter to Bukhari,
Middle East Monitor issued a public apology for publishing the news on their website and removed the articles. The director stated, "We accept Mr Bukhari's refutation of the claims made in the report and sincerely apologise for the inconvenience it has caused."
Resurgence of terrorism The declining trend in terrorism, which started with Gen Raheel Sharif's Zarb-i-Azb, continued till the end of 2020 and the very first signs of its reversal were witnessed in 2021, under the watch of General Bajwa. The next year (2022) was particularly regressive, with a 60 per cent spike in terrorist attacks over the previous year in eleven months so far. A total of 132 terrorist attacks have been reported in the past three months, including 50 alone in November. Under Qamar Javed Bajwa, most controversial steps taken between 2021 and 2022, were talks with the TTP. The militant group used the time afforded by the talks, brokered by their allies, the Afghan Taliban, and the subsequent ceasefire as a confidence-building measure to re-establish its footprint. The militants were allowed to resettle back in the areas cleared by the previous
military operations, as part of the confidence-building measure. The military sanitized those terroritories under the command of Bajwa's predecessors
Kayani and
Raheel through focused military campaigns. However, despite Bajwa's soft appeasement of militants, TTP eventually walked away from the accord on the pretext of a resumption of counter-terrorism operations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, that wreaked havoc in the province in the form of heightened militant activity in 2023. == Bajwa doctrine ==