Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) President Asma Jahangir said on Tuesday that Pakistan Army generals were least bothered about country’s security and more concerned about grabbing precious lands. “Army generals just want to expand their own properties, they do nothing against security threats facing the country” said Asma while addressing at a gathering organised by Awami Shehri Mahaz here at National Press Club. The moot had been held to demand an increase in budgetary allocations for education and health and cut in the defence expenditures. Asma further said; “Some forces have threatened to kill me in a car accident due to my fiery speeches. But I have took firm stand and no one can suppress my voice”, she added.
She said that whenever the civil society criticised the country’s military institutions, it did not involve the soldiers fighting for the country but only the ‘corrupt’ generals who were busy in ‘looting public wealth’. The SCBA president said that all the businesses of generals were running on subsidies. She added that military dictators did the greatest disservice to the country when it disintegrated in 1971. She continued that despite several stints by military governments, the generals failed to stabilise the economy and that all they did was to grab corner plots in posh housing societies.
Commenting on the accountability mechanism in the military establishment, Asma recalled that no indictments were made over the Ojhri Camp explosions that claimed thousands of lives. She also criticised media for focusing on the wrongdoings of politicians and not of generals. She called for bringing military under the control of civilian government and a strict system of accountability for the former.
