Sindh Inspector General of Police Mushtaq Mahar has merely deferred his own leave and has asked his officers to set aside their leave applications for ten days, pending the conclusion of the inquiry into his abduction by Army for forcefully getting a FIR (First Information Report) registered against PML-N office bearers & workers, as reported at - 

https://www.dawn.com/news/1586086/sindh-ig-defers-leave-orders-his-officers-to-set-aside-their-leave-applications-for-10-days . Obviously if the outcome of the inquiry (by Sindh government and by the Army as ordered by Army Chief General Bajwa) are not as per the expectation of Sindh police then officers of the Sindh police can rather will again go on leave, as a protest.

This has exacerbated the situation further which is highly like to lead to military rule / martial law in Pakistan as mentioned below: -

(1)- If police does not register FIR then it can always be got registered by approaching the concerned Magistrate hence otherwise also the behavior of Army officer is unpardonable who abducted IG police for forcefully getting FIR registered regarding ‘crime’ of raising pro-democracy (give respect to votes) slogans at the Mazar of Pakistan’s founder Jinnah

(2)- Though IG could have registered FIR with police against said Army officer for abducting him but police officers in Sindh chose to give institutional response. In 1999 when the flight of Gen Musharraf was allegedly hijacked by the then PM Nawaz Sharif, Pak Army did not ask Gen Musharraf to file FIR against Nawaz rather it gave an institutional response and carried out a coup to dislodge Nawaz because Army said that it was the question of the reputation & authority of the Army Chief. Similarly, Sindh police also gave institutional response and went on mass leave because the question of the reputation & authority of the Police Chief is involved.

(3)- Though Sindh is a province but the police officers are from ‘All Pakistan Service’ as is the case in India too where IAS and IPS officers are from ‘All India Service’. Therefore even if there is no association of police officers,  the said humiliation of IG of police (who is at the highest rank of the police officers) by the Army will certainly have under currents which will spread in police all across Pakistan and this is bound to generate a feeling of closing-in of ranks among Pak Police officers from top to bottom against any such aggression & humiliation by Pak Army.

(4)- Police does not go for head-on collisions with the Military but they are spread all across Pakistan even in the interiors where family, relatives and friends of the Military personnel live and where their economic & financial interests are there. Police can easily harass them and which will exacerbate the situation further if the hostility / bad-blood between Police & Military in Pakistan is not resolved completely.

(5)- On October 1 during a PML-N rally in Lahore the people were surprised when a party leader said (invoking provincialism) that the government / Pak Army have violated the self respect of Punjabis by doing what it did to a Punjabi leader Nawaz (by way of illegally removing him from power, putting him in prison, initiating false criminal cases etc). But the perspicacious people knew that it was meant to send a signal to Pak military (mainly from Punjab) that the support base of Pak military (the Punjab province) will not like / tolerate a Punjabi PM (Nawaz) to be humiliated and illtreated. This is the reason that in the speech at Gujranwala (Punjab) public meeting on October 16, Nawaz could accuse so scathingly General Bajwa of serious crimes of interference in politics etc without any adverse reaction from the public. 

(6)-  The threat issued by Maulana, the emerging Sunni- Ayatollah to Pak military should be seen along with the mobilization by Nawaz against Pak military all across Pakistan especially in Punjab. Nobody says that the PDM led by Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman is more powerful than Pak military but it should not be forgotten that after getting the leadership of the PDM, Maulana gave threat by way of public statement that if Pak military doesn’t mend its ways then it will face the same fate as was suffered by the military of the USA / NATO in Afghanistan at the hands of the militant Jihadis. Though it may be a mere coincidence that even after this threat the arrest of Maulana has not been ensured by Pak Army. But at the same time Pak Military will think twice before crushing by force the PDM (which is a combination of 11 opposition parties which secured about 70 % votes in 2018 elections and which is bent upon becoming so militant under the leadership of Maulana).

(7)- The threat issued by Maulana to Pak Military should be seen in the context of militant Jihadis not only in the neighborhood of Pakistan (in Afghanistan and Central Asia) but also from all across the world (as Al-Qaeda & ISIS have been getting) who will be glad to join Maulana for the simple reason that the nukes of Pakistan will come under militant Jihadis in case (like Afghanistan) the militant Jihadis of Maulana wins against government forces of Pakistan.

(8)- After Christians, the Muslims are the second largest community in the world out of which the Shias are merely about 15 % (remaining the Sunnis are about 85 %). Hence Shia-Ayatollah in Iran did not create unmanageable problems for the Western democracy led by the USA. But Sunni-Ayatollah STARTING from about 210 million strong nuclear Pakistan is bound to create huge political challenge and problems for the USA (because this process of creation of Sunni-Ayatollahs will not remain confined to Pakistan only)

In a nutshell the increasing belligerent tone of Maulana / PDM against Pak military and the institutional response of Pak police against Army due to Sindh fiasco are bound to generate a sense of weakness in Pak military which will not be tolerated: -

(i)- By Pak military because it cannot remain in a political model (like most of the democratic countries across the world where military is not so overly powerful) for the simple reason that Kashmir problem is still unresolved and Pak military lives in a permanent fear of Indian attack which has further increased since what India did in J&K on and after August 5, 2019 including threat by Minister of GoI that Pakistani side of J&K (including Giligit-Baltistan and even Aksai Chin) will be retrieved by India, militarily.

(ii)- By China because Pak military is the best guaranteed not only for the protection of CPEC & Gwadar port but also for Chinese democracy in Pakistan as mentioned at http://www.pakistanchristianpost.com/opinion-details/3673

In such a situation if things are not handled properly especially with the help & active intervention of the USA (which only can get Kashmir solution too) then military rule / martial law in Pakistan is the highly likely eventuality. The USA can get Kashmir solution: -

(A)- by removing the root cause of communalism in Indian subcontinent through dual citizenship for about 160 million people [about 80 million Hindus (about 20 % of present population) who were expelled from Pakistan & Bangladesh during partition similarly the descendants of Muslims who went to these countries from India]

(B)- By plebiscite in united J&K as mandated not only by UN Resolution but also by the ‘Instrument of Accession’ itself which reads as - “[it is my Government’s wish that, as soon as law and order have been restored in Kashmir, and her soil cleared of the invader, the question of the State’s Accession should be settled by a reference to the people. Yours Sincerely Sd/- Mountbatten of Burma]”

Whether the USA, which nowadays has lost interest in international affairs by taking an excuse that it is busy in its Presidential election (at least up to November 3 if Trump is reelected or January 2021 if Biden wins), will be able to revive adequate interest in foreign affairs which will ensure that military rule / martial law does not take place in Pakistan, will be a matter which will be watched all across the world with great interest & concern.