Kabul’s announcement that it had released three Pakistani soldiers in its custody since October last year came as a surprise-not because prevailing tensions between the two countries precluded such benevolence on the part of the latter, but due to the fact that Rawalpindi had never disclosed that three of its soldiers had been taken prisoner during last year’s October border clashes.While this incident reminds one of Gautama Buddha’s incisive observation that “Three things can’t be hidden for long: the sun, the moon and the truth,” lack of any immediate response from Islamabad or Rawalpindi on this extraordinary development is symptomatic of Pakistan’s puerile attempt to maintain stoic silence in a bid to avoid embarrassment.
Yet this isn’t at all unexpected as it’s not for the first time that Rawalpindi has exhibited brazen indifference towards its rank and file by concealing facts. Readers would recall how Pakistan army chief Gen Pervez Musharraf had refused to accept the dead bodies of his own soldiers who had been killed in combatduring the 1999 Kargil War - something unprecedented in the annals of modern military history. While Rawalpindi hasn’t disclosed how many dead soldiers were left behind, according to Nawaz Sharif who was the then Prime Minister of Pakistan disclosed that the INdia army had buried about 200 dead bodies that had been abandoned by the Pakistan army.
The tragedy is that while this was done just to buttress Rawalpindi’s laughable sham that the intruders in Kargil were militants and not army regulars, Gen Musharraf in his 2006 memoir In the Line of Fire himself admitted that Pakistan army regulars had fought in Kargil and put the army fatalities at 357. But here again he was once again being economical with the truth because five year later, the Pakistan army website listed the names of 453 officers and soldiers killed during this war.
Rawalpindi’s reluctance in truthfully reporting its casualties suffered during exchanges of fire with the Indian army is an established fact. Dawn in its June 7th, 2017 news report titled Number of martyred soldiers can’t be disclosed, Senate told, mentions Pakistan’s then Minister of State for Water and Power Abid Sher Ali stating in the National Assembly that the number of army men killed due to Indian firing could not be disclosed due to security reasons and quoted him saying “We do not want our enemy [India] to know how many [Pakistani] soldiers laid down their lives.”
How does announcing details of army fatalities in the line of duty and honouring them for having made the supreme sacrifice compromise security defies logical explanation. However, this bizarre trend continues even today. In its May 13, 2025 news report, The Express Tribune mentioned Pakistan army’s media wing Inter Services Public Relations [ISPR] claiming that only 11 Pakistan armed forces personnel were killed during Operation Sindoor/Bunyan-un-Marsoos.
However, Buddha’s words regarding the impossibility of hiding the truth once again proved right, and that too in merely three months. On August 14, 2025, Pakistan’s Samaa TV published the names of 138 personnel of the Pakistan armed forces who were posthumously awarded for having displayed “outstanding courage, gallantry, and supreme sacrifice during Operation Bunyanun Marsoos.” The fact that this list was hurriedly taken down from Samaa TV’s website clearly indicates that the Pakistan army still upholds its obtuse “We do not want our enemy to know how many soldiers laid down their lives” belief.
Last week, Pakistan’s leader of opposition Mahmood Khan Achakzai claimed in the National Assembly that the Pakistan army belongs to only four districts. In a bid to protect the army, Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khwaja Asif disclosed that in the last five years alone, the Pakistan army had suffered 3141 fatal casualties [170 officers, 212 Junior Commissioned Officers [JCOs] and 2,759 soldiers] in the “war against terrorism.” These alarming figures make one seriously doubt Rawalpindi’s claim of having got the upper hand against Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan [TTP] and armed Baloch groups.
These casualty figures reveal that during the last five years, the monthly attrition rate of the Pakistan army has been in excess of 50 fatalities [more than 2 officers, 3 JCOs and 42 soldiers]. Such inordinately high casualty figures have put Pakistan Army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir on the back-foot but instead of introspecting, he is conveniently playing blame games. While accusing New Delhi and Kabul for sponsoring anti-Pakistan army groups, he passes the buck of his own military failure by dimwitted statements like “How long will we [Pakistan army] continue to fill governance gaps with the blood of the armed forces of Pakistan and the martyrs?”
The field marshal’s “governance gaps” allegation raises a question. When its Field Marshal Munir and not Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif who gets an exclusive invite from POTUS for lunch at the White House, when he’s the sole army man to attend the World Economic Forum at Davos with a meek Sharif in tow, and when he is publicly hailed by US President Donald Trump as his “favourite Field Marshal,” isn’t Field Marshal Munir [who’s now the country’s Chief of Defence Forces] the real government in Pakistan?
Last week the Baloch Liberation Army [BLA] released a video that shows what it claims are seven Pakistan security force members in its custody. Though the captured soldiers have revealed their identities, names of their fathers, home addresses and even produced documents like military identity cards, the Pakistan army has neither confirmed nor rejected the claim made by BLA, and Rawalpindi’s stoic silence on this issue is indeed intriguing. BLA has given Rawalpindi seven days to accept their offer for a prisoner swap and threatened to kill the captured Pakistani soldiers in case it refuses to do so.
In April last year, Field Marshal Munir had made the pompous declaration that “we will beat the hell out of these [Baloch] terrorists very soon,” adding “Do Pakistan’s enemies think that a handful of terrorists can decide the fate of Pakistan?” Eight months have since elapsed and the massive Herof 2.0 operation launched by BLA has clearly indicated that Munir’s boast of beating the hell out of armed Baloch groups has proved to be a dud. And while armed Baloch groups may currently not be in a position to “decide the fate of Pakistan,” the BLA definitely has control over the fate of the seven Pakistani soldiers in its custody.
The ball is now squarely in the field marshal’s court. By refusing to negotiate with BLA, he can preserve his self-created illusion of having been chosen by God to be the “protector of Pakistan,” but this could well result in the execution of the captured soldiers, which in turn could result in a public out lash. But with a subservient legislature, compliant judiciary, a muzzled media and non-existent civil society, Field Marshal Munir has nothing to really worry about. The fact that no one in Pakistan has questioned why the public was kept in the dark regarding Pakistani soldiers having been captured by the Afghan Taliban four months ago, or why hasn’t Rawalpindi either rejected or confirmed the BLA’s claim of having captured seven Pakistani soldiers is irrefutable proof that the Pakistan army is answerable to none.
The main reason for violence in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan is because its people have been alienated due to the Pakistan army's perverse strategy of disappearing innocents, carrying out extra judicial killings and terrorising civilians with brazen impunity. While Field Marshal Munir may blame “foreign powers” and “governance gaps” for the prevailing sorry state of affairs in these provinces, the reality is that excesses by the army are the real reason for rising terrorism and secessionist activities in these provinces.
And with Pakistan’s 27th Constitutional Amendment elevating army chief Field Marshal Munir to overall commander of the defence forces and providing him lifelong immunity both from criminal and civil proceedings, who can stop the field marshal from trying to rid Pakistan of terrorism solely through the barrel of a gun?


Email:----------------------------nileshkunwar56@gmail.com