Introduction
Pakistan has plunged into an intense crisis of governance where the fundamental principles of parliamentary democracy have been systematically hollowed out under Field Marshal Asim Munir. Since assuming the military command, Munir has presided over an unprecedented consolidation of executive, strategic, and judicial control, converting the civilian setup into an obedient facade while crushing political dissent across the country. Through tailor-made constitutional changes, the aggressive political persecution of former Prime Minister Imran Khan, midnight raids against female relatives, and unchecked state violence in Balochistan, power has been concentrated in Rawalpindi like never before. This ongoing centralization has eroded the rule of law, fractured the country's superior judiciary, and pushed an already distressed economy to the brink.
The 27th Amendment Coup and the Puppet Prime Minister
Rather than seizing state television or rolling out military convoys, Munir engineered a sweeping institutional takeover through calculated legislative bulldozing. The passage of the 27th Constitutional Amendment, alongside the Defence Forces of Pakistan Act and the National Command Authority Amendment Act of 2026, transformed the military command into a centralized autocracy. These laws created the supreme office of Chief of Defence Forces (CDF) under Munir, giving him operational command over the Army, Navy, and Air Force, the power to hire and dismiss armed personnel across all three branches at will, and oversight of the nuclear command structure. Elevated to a five-star Field Marshal with a uniform for life and complete constitutional immunity from criminal prosecution, Munir had his tenure reset until 2030, with pathways extending to 2035. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and the ruling coalition have been relegated to mere figureheads, rubber-stamping the surrender of civilian supremacy to secure their political positions. To suppress legal challenges, the establishment clipped the powers of the Supreme Court, instituted an executive-controlled Federal Constitutional Court, and empowered non-consensual judicial transfers, compelling respected senior judges like Justice Athar Minallah and Justice Mansoor Ali Shah to resign in protest.
The Adiala Cage: Trapping and Medically Isolating Imran Khan
Central to this power grab is the relentless effort to permanently sideline former Prime Minister Imran Khan. Rooted in personal friction that began when Khan removed Munir as ISI director in June 2019, the establishment has unleashed the full coercive weight of the state since Khan's arrest in August 2023. Trapped in over a hundred politically motivated cases ranging from disputed official gifts to alleged violations of state secrets, Khan remains confined within the walls of Adiala Jail under harsh solitary confinement. Authorities have systematically stripped him of basic prisoner rights, barring visits from legal counsel, blocking phone calls with his sons, and refusing access to domestic news. This high-handedness extended to outright judicial defiance when the Supreme Court ordered Khan's transfer to Islamabad's Shifa International Hospital for urgent care regarding a serious optical condition. Instead of complying, the state rushed him through a brief, cosmetic checkup at the government-run Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) before throwing him straight back into isolation without access to his personal doctors, drawing widespread outrage over deliberate, punitive medical neglect.
Violating the Chardiwari: Midnight Raids on Khan’s Sisters
Having dismantled Khan’s party through mass arrests, coerced resignations, and the confiscation of its electoral symbol, the security apparatus crossed traditional societal norms by targeting his non-political female family members. Ahead of a planned protest march on 27 September to demand basic constitutional rights and medical access for the jailed leader, the administration weaponized the colonial-era Maintenance of Public Order (MPO) law to choke public mobilization. Aleema Khanum was intercepted in Lahore and placed under thirty-day preventive detention at Kot Lakhpat Jail on accusations of inciting public disorder. Hours later, following a press conference exposing her arrest, more than a hundred heavily armed police officers carried out a terrifying 3 AM raid on the family residence, hauling away Dr. Uzma Khan and Noreen Niazi in armored vehicles alongside their minor grandchildren and domestic staff. While the frightened four- and six-year-old children were eventually released, the three sisters were held incommunicado without legal counsel, drawing condemnation from Amnesty International for the arbitrary criminalization of family ties and the suppression of peaceful assembly.
Balochistan’s Agony: Abducting Students, Women, and Minors with Impunity
Far from the political turbulence in Punjab, the state's militarized machinery has escalated a brutal campaign of repression across Balochistan. Enforced disappearances and extrajudicial "kill and dump" tactics carried out by the Frontier Corps, intelligence agencies, and state-backed death squads have surged under Munir’s command. Abductions have swept through university campuses, taking students like Sohail Ahmed and Safi Mohammad from their dormitories, while reaching into private households to take women like Burpi and Nehal, and children as young as seven-year-old Yaro and ten-year-old Imdad. In cases like that of Qadir Bakhsh, whose bullet-riddled, heavily tortured body was dumped in 2025 after years of harassment and the previous custodial deaths of his young sons, the violence has devastated entire generations. When the custodial killing of twenty-four-year-old Balaach Mola Baksh led hundreds of Baloch women to march 1,600 kilometers to Islamabad, the state responded with batons, blockades, and media blackouts, while imposing complete military sieges on villages in Gichk where starving residents require military permits to purchase basic flour.
Carving the Map and the Bleeding Economy: Munir’s Overreach
Rather than stabilizing the nation, the security high command has pursued radical administrative maneuvers that threaten to fracture the federation further. Addressing business executives in Karachi, Munir proposed carving Pakistan’s four historical provinces into as many as twelve smaller administrative units, an exercise intended to bypass the 18th Constitutional Amendment and break provinces into weak, resource-dependent territories incapable of resisting Rawalpindi's directives. Meanwhile, this authoritarian consolidation unfolds over an economic disaster, with national debt and liabilities approaching Rs 100 trillion and debt servicing consuming the federal budget. Security across the country has disintegrated, placing Pakistan atop the 2026 Global Terrorism Index as fatal attacks against security forces surge. Instead of bringing stability, this excessive concentration of military authority has isolated the state, paralyzed civil governance, and alienated the general public.
Conclusion
The attempt to govern Pakistan through the coercive command of a single Field Marshal has stripped the state of sovereign legitimacy and deepened public anger. Caging the country's most prominent political leader, terrorizing civilian households, suffocating judicial independence, and meting out unchecked custodial brutality in Balochistan will not fix structural insolvency or heal internal fractures. Unilateral constitutional amendments and lifetime immunities cannot replace popular consent. Unless the establishment halts this vindictive course, accounts for the disappeared, and surrenders governance back to the democratic mandate of its citizens, this concentration of power will drive the republic toward profound systemic breakdown.