Thread by @KamranShafi46

There were some others like Sahibzada, Sirji, striking attitudes: Lt. Gen. Atiqur (Turk) Rehman, M.C. (RIP) for one. I was also a great admirer (being a stickler for discipline myself) hearing stories of how he, as Adjutant General would stop his staff car and make a passing 2/

https://twitter.com/JehangirJm/status/1393118816620720130

2/ Sepoy (in this case my batman, The Late No. 2436392 L/Nk Azam Ali (RIP) at that time attending the ‘Dog Handler's Course’ in Rawalpindi), who told me the story himself when I joined the 4th Battalion The Baluch Regiment in 1966) do ten push-ups for saluting in a slovenly 3/

3/ manner. Knowing Azam Ali, richly deserved of course! Now look at his other side. It was the summer of 1989 and I had taken some reading material with me to the farm. @TFT_ had just come out and reading it on the bus saw an interview of the General’s in which to a question 4/

5/ why he hadn’t done anything to try and avoid the East Pakistan tragedy he said words to the effect: ‘I was Number 3 in the Army then; if I had known the extent of what was going on I would have done something about it in good conscience’. I almost fell off my seat! By the 6/

6/ time the tonga had deposited me at the farm (bus from Badami Bagh, Lahore, to Mananwala; tonga for the 5 miles to Kot Hyat Khan, the one car left at home for my wife, and children’s school) I was seething. After a quick dip in the tube well tank I grabbed pen 7/

7/ and paper and wrote a Letter to the Editor which was sent to the Mosque Imam (village Mosques doubled as Post Offices in those days) and was collected by the khaki-clad, red-turbaned postman the next day as he cycled through the village (Note: @HarounRashid). The letter 8/

8/ was to the effect that I was Number 7,843 in the Army then and if I knew the ‘extent of what was going on’ in East Pakistan why the devil didn’t he?! I added that this was precisely the reason that Pakistan was in the state it was in, when senior officers did not take 9/

9/ responsibility for their acts of omission or commission, or introspect, to try and prevent such a calamity from ever happening again. Ardeshir Cowasjee (RIP) being a pal of the General’s fell on me like a ton of bricks and there was some tou tou, mein mein with him for 10/

10/ some weeks 🤣! The General was also related by marriage so there were some few rumblings in the family too. But there it is! Soon, some more on another ‘swashbuckling swagger-stick twirling’ General who wanted to let ‘the @#$%^&* Bhutto and his @#$%^&* government stew in 11/

11/ their own juices’ when the Punjab Governor asked the local Corps Commander to come out in Aid to the Civil Power because the Punjab Police went on strike! We have many, many, wannabe Napoleons and Rommels and Guderians, SirJi, just as we have many, many, big, big, bums. 12/

12/ We also test our bum-carrying missiles DURING The Pandemic, trying to put the fear of God into the World before going to IT begging bowls in hand. We are a unique lot, Sirji, a truly unique lot!!

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