The confrontation between Pakistan’s Army Chief General Asim Munir and former Prime Minister Imran Khan has grown far beyond the usual power struggle between a military establishment and an elected leader. What began as a personal and institutional clash has evolved into something deeper — a showdown between Pakistan’s Punjabi-dominated state machinery and a rising wave of Pashtun political self-assertion. Munir may command the country’s vast security apparatus, but the one figure he cannot neutralize politically — even from a prison cell — is Imran Khan, whose influence has only intensified since his arrest.
Khan’s silence and inaccessibility for nearly a month created a vacuum that fuelled rumours of his death. Rather than immediately clarify his condition, the regime remained uncharacteristically muted — a stark contrast to earlier occasions when similar rumours forced officials to rush out denials. The silence suggested not logistical delay but fear: fear of the public reaction that even the brief appearance of Khan in court, or the sound of his voice, could trigger. When thousands of supporters gathered outside Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail demanding proof of his well-being, authorities still hesitated to explain why scheduled weekly visits had been blocked. Khan’s continued dominance over Pakistan’s political imagination explains the nervous caution at the highest levels.
The roots of Munir’s animosity toward Khan run back to 2019, when Khan removed him as ISI chief — a humiliating blow linked to alleged investigations involving Khan’s wife Bushra Bibi. Since then, the military establishment has defined PTI’s popularity as a threat to its supremacy. The army engineered Khan’s ouster, then supervised a sweeping crackdown, from imprisoning thousands of PTI workers to blocking party symbols, rallies, media access, and digital communications. Yet none of it erased Khan’s central place in the political consciousness of millions.
What makes Khan uniquely dangerous for Munir is not merely his personal popularity, but the ethnic identity that now overlays it. Pakistan’s Pashtuns (Pathans) have long resented Punjabi dominance in the army, bureaucracy, wealth distribution and national policymaking. Their provinces remain underfunded, their representation disproportionately low, and their grievances routinely securitized. Forced deportations of Afghan refugees, cross-border airstrikes that killed civilians, and counterterror policies that disproportionately target Pashtun regions have worsened the anger. Khan’s Pashtun heritage gives his conflict with the military a symbolic power that no other mainstream politician possesses.
For Munir, this is the nightmare scenario: a jailed Pashtun leader transformed into a martyr figure around whom ethnic frustrations — decades in the making — suddenly coalesce. Releasing Khan risks igniting a groundswell in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and beyond. Silencing him risks magnifying his martyrdom. Either outcome threatens the stability of Pakistan’s ruling establishment, which now functions through a carefully controlled civil–military hybrid system anchored in Punjab.
Munir’s recent constitutional empowerment — including new authority over all branches of the armed forces and protections from judicial oversight — underscores the high stakes. His survival depends on maintaining dominance through coercion while preventing one man’s image from triggering nationwide mobilization. The secrecy surrounding Khan’s condition is part of a strategy shaped by fear: a belief that even a short video clip could electrify the streets.
Pakistan has gone through cycles of military rule, civilian puppetry and engineered elections before. But never before has the army found itself confronting a mass movement that blends popular leadership, moral-victimhood narrative and ethnic solidarity. That combination is precisely what makes Khan uniquely threatening to Munir. It is also why the struggle between the two men has evolved into a test of Pakistan’s internal cohesion — and into the most volatile chapter yet of the country’s civil–military conflict.
