Pakistan: Lt Gen Ayman Bilal Safdar, Commander of Mangla Corps, forced to put down his papers

A senior Pakistani Lieutenant General, Corps Commander of 1 Corps based in Mangla, Lt Gen Ayman Bilal Safdar, has been forced to put in his papers and go home three years before his retirement is due in 2026. The news about Lt Gen Safdar was on many YouTube channels operated by Pakistanis, mostly based outside Pakistan, on Tuesday. However, most newspapers, TV channels, and others have maintained a studied silence so far.

An artillery officer, Lt Gen Safdar, could have been a contender for the top post in the Pakistan Army in 2025. If present Chief of Army Staff General Asim Munir, were to retire at the end of his regular tenure,. The whereabouts of Lt Gen Safdar are not clear, but according to some reports, he was in Saudi Arabia on Umrah. However, ISPR has neither released any official statement on Lt Gen Safdar’s forced retirement nor given any other relevant details.

It is being said in some quarters that Lt Gen Safdar was an outspoken man who criticised the Pakistan Army’s role in rampant rigging of elections on February 8 this year. Besides, some other reports suggest that he refused to order the arrest of some important PTI workers.

According to some reports, Lt Gen Safdar had been asked to report to the Rawalpindi headquarters of the Pakistan Army on April 4. However, he gave up his command on April 2 and has not been seen in public since then. It is customary to say farewell to a retiring officer, but there are no reports that Lt Gen Safdar was accorded this courtesy.

Incidentally, Lt Gen Safdar is the second Corps Commander to have been sacked in the last year. In May 2023, Lt Gen Salman Fayyaz Ghani was given the marching orders as GOC of 4 Corps as Pakistan Tehreek Insaf (PTI) workers ransacked the Flag Staff House after Imran Khan’s arrest on May 9. It is said that Lt Gen Ghani had told his guards to stand down and refused to order firing at PTI workers indulging in violence at that time.

Lt Gen Ghani’s act was considered to have lowered the prestige of the Pakistan Army, and that became a reason for his dismissal. Along with him, three Major Generals and seven Brigadiers were also dismissed in the last week of June 2023. The Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) had said at that time that it was a “black chapter in history’’. The officers were dismissed for “failing to keep the security and honour of garrisons, military installations, Jinnah House, and General Headquarters intact.”.

In November 2022, outgoing Pakistan Army Chief General Qamar Bajwa, during his farewell tour, was hosted by Lt Gen Ayman Bilal Safdar at Mangla. He was one of 12 Major Generals promoted to the next rank of Lieutenant General during Bajwa’s tenure in October 2022. Incidentally, 1 Corps at Mangla is considered one of the top positions in the Pakistan Army.