Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Syed Asim Munir has denied receiving any letter from incarcerated former premier Imran Khan.

 

In a formal conversation with the media on Thursday, the Army chief, while alluding to the jailed Imran Khan’s open letter, said that he would not “read it [the letter] even if I receive it.”

 

He maintained that he would forward any such communication to Prime Minister (PM) Shehbaz Sharif if he received it.

 

“Pakistan is moving forward, and Pakistan has to move forward,” the army chief said.

 

The clarification comes a day after Imran Khan’s lawyer, Faisal Chaudhry, claimed that the PTI founder had written a third letter to the army chief.

 

On February 3, Chaudhry, while speaking to the media outside Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi, had stated, “Imran Khan, as a party supremo and former premier, has written a six-point letter to the army chief, expressing solidarity with the military in its fight against terrorism, and acknowledging the sacrifices made by our soldiers.”

 

According to Chaudhry, Khan’s letter maintained that the entire nation was standing with its armed forces and also highlighted for Gen Munir the issue of “fraudulent elections,” the controversial Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA), the 26th Amendment, and the Al-Qadir Trust case verdict against him.

 

On February 8, party sources claimed Khan had written a second letter, this time complaining about the reaction to the first letter, among other things.

 

“I wrote an open letter to you with sincere intentions for the betterment of the nation… However, the response I received was highly unserious and irresponsible [sic],” read a statement on Khan’s official X handle.

 

In the second letter, Khan reportedly went on to write a series of complaints to General Asim Munir. “I was placed in solitary confinement under extreme conditions for 20 days… in a cell where even sunlight could not reach. For five days, my cell’s electricity was cut off, leaving me in complete darkness,” he claimed.

 

“My exercise equipment and television were confiscated and I was denied access to newspapers… apart from those 20 days, I was also kept in solitary for 40 hours,” he said and added that he had only been allowed to talk to his sons three times over the past six months, despite a court order allowing him to contact his children regularly.

 

On February 12, Faisal Chaudhry said in a statement, “The PTI founder, in his letter to the army chief, has raised the issue of giving preference to the minority over the majority through election fraud.”