‘Pakistan Is Disintegrating’: Fazlur Rehman Challenges Army Chief Asim Munir to Contest Elections Amid Growing Unrest

Pakistan’s internal security crisis just picked up an unlikely critic. Fazlur Rehman, the JUI-F chief, told a crowd in Punjab that the country is disintegrating and that it’s the army’s job to stop that, not the public’s.

“The entire area of Balochistan had gone outside the authority of Pakistan. Even today, there is no writ of the Pakistan government there. We were crying over the Baloch area. Now, even the Pashtun area is bathing in blood. We have got over 50 dead bodies in the Pashtun areas over the last two to three days,” he said.

That’s not a man complaining about policy. That’s a man describing a province the state has lost.

A direct dare to Munir

Rehman didn’t stop at describing the chaos he went after the military’s grip on politics itself, aiming squarely at Field Marshal Asim Munir. Step down, he said, and see how the ballot box treats you.

“If you want to do politics, then take off your uniform and come. Take part in the election. You will get to know how many votes people in uniform receive. It is your right to put anyone in government and to snatch it away from whomever you wish,” he said.

Few Pakistani politicians say this out loud. Fewer still say it while the man they’re daring still outranks everyone in the room.

On the ground, it’s worse than the speeches

Last week, insurgents abducted and killed 18 police personnel after attacking a police post, then ambushed a highway convoy and killed 11 soldiers in a separate strike. Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi says the response killed 114 militants in follow-up operations. Meanwhile activist Dr Mahrang Baloch is still in custody worth sitting with, given how differently the state seems to treat dissent versus armed insurgency.

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Shehbaz Sharif called in Munir and Balochistan CM Sarfraz Bugti for a high-level sit-down, where the line from Islamabad was the usual one: militants are staging attacks from Afghan territory into both Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. That explanation is getting a lot of use lately. It hasn’t stopped the convoys from getting hit.

The South Asia Terrorism Portal puts 2026’s toll so far at 650 killing incidents, 487 civilian deaths, 730 security personnel killed, and close to 1,200 militants killed.

PoJK has its own fire going

Balochistan isn’t the only front. In Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, thousands of Joint Awami Action Committee supporters have been sitting in at Rawalakot’s Eidgah ground since June 9, after the government banned the group outright. JAAC’s list runs to 38 demands, the biggest of which is scrapping the 12 assembly seats reserved for Pakistanis who don’t live in PoJK.

Over the weekend, security forces reportedly opened fire on protesters in Baagh Arja Jandala who were demonstrating for basic rights and economic relief. JAAC has now called a long march to Muzaffarabad for July 15.

Add it up: an unstable Afghan border, a rising Balochistan body count, a Kashmir region in open revolt, and now a senior religious politician daring the army chief to run for office. Nobody in Islamabad looks like they’re steering all of this at once.