ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s former interior minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed said on Wednesday no one should chant anti-army slogans while emphasizing the necessity of resolving misunderstandings with the military.

Ahmed is head of the Awami Muslim League (AML) party which was a coalition partner in Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) administration.

Khan was ousted in a no-trust vote on Sunday after he faced defections within his own political factions and was abandoned by his key political allies.

Thousands of PTI supporters protested his removal from the country’s top political office on Sunday night while criticizing state institutions and blaming the army chief for the recent political change in the country.

“Absolutely no slogan should be raised against the army,” he told reporters in Peshawar, adding: “We have to remove misunderstandings with them [the military].”

Ahmed said if the country’s new prime minister Shehbaz Sharif could mend ties with the army, the PTI and its allies “should also remove misunderstandings and build relationship with them.”

A day earlier, the army’s formation commanders met in Rawalpindi and took notice of what they called a malicious campaign on social media that was aimed at creating differences between the public and the army.

Pakistani media also reported the Federal Investigation Agency had made arrests as part of a crackdown on social media activists that it believed were involved in an organized online campaign against the state institutions, especially the army.