General Qamar Javed Bajwa

 

General Qamar Javed Bajwa is a four star army general in the Pakistan Army who will take up the post of the 16th Chief of Army Staff of the Pakistan Army on 29th November 2016. Born in Ghakhar Mandi Gujranwala Bajwa was commissioned in 1980 in the Baloch Regiment. He was born to Col Muhammad Iqbal Bajwa an officer of Pakistani Army. His mother died in September 2013. Bajwa's father in law was also a Pakistani Army officer who retired as a major general. Previously he served at the GHQ as the Inspector General of the Training and Evaluation from 2015 to 2016 and as the Corps Commander X Corps from 2013 to 2015 which is responsible for the area along the Line of Control. Bajwa also served as a peacekeeper in the UN mission in Congo as a brigade commander. General Qamar Javed Bajwa HI (M) is a four-star rank army general in the Pakistan Army who currently serving as the 16th Chief of Army Staff of the Pakistan Army. Bajwa is a graduate of Canadian Army Command and Staff College Naval Postgraduate School and National Defence University Pakistan. Bajwa was commissioned in 16 Baloch Regiment on 24 October 1980. In 1982 he was commissioned in Sind Regiment. As lieutenant colonel, he served in the X Corps which is stationed in Rawalpindi where he was general staff officer. As a brigadier, Bajwa served as Chief of Staff at X Corps and has also commanded formation division in Northern Areas as formation commander. Bajwa has also commanded a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Congo. He served in Congo as a brigade commander in 2007 under former Chief of Army Staff of the Indian Army Bikram Singh who was serving there as a division commander. Gen Singh later termed Bajwa's performance there as professional and outstanding. In May 2009, he was promoted to the rank of major general. As a major general, Bajwa served as the Force Commander of Gilgit-Baltistan and held the title of the General Officer Commanding. In August 2011 he was awarded Hilal-i-Imtiaz Military. Bajwa was an instructor at School of Infantry and Tactics in Quetta at Command and Staff College in Quetta and at National Defence University Pakistan. He was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general in August 2013 and was installed as Corps Commander X Corps shortly after. He was Grade-I officer during his tenure as Corps Commander X Corps. In 2014 Bajwa was installed as Colonel Commandant of Baloch Regiment. In September 2015 he was appointed as the Inspector General of the Training and Evaluation at the GHQ where he was a Principal Staff Officer to then Chief of Army Staff Raheel Sharif. Since Bajwa has been posted in X Corps thrice which is the army’s important and largest corps Bajwa has good experience of handling affairs in Kashmir. But reportedly, he considers religious extremism to be a bigger threat to national security in Pakistan rather than India. He belongs to the infantry’s 16 Baloch Regiment and 62nd Pakistan Military Academy Long Course. However he lacks the experience of armed conflict because he has never been posted in a war zone area. In November 2016 Bajwa was promoted to the rank of four stars general and was appointed as the 16th Chief of the Army Staff of the Pakistan Army by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif succeeding Raheel Sharif. The Guardian reported that Bajwa was appointed as the Chief of the Army Staff despite a maligning campaign on social media sites that spread claims that relatives of Bajwa were members of the Ahmadiyya Community. Reuters reported that he was selected because of his low profile personality. He is reported to be a genuine military man with no interest in politics and the one who remains well-connected with the troops and doesn't seek attention and protocol. The announcement on Saturday by Nawaz Sharif the Pakistan prime minister is being described by analysts as an act that places Pakistan's civil-military relationship on a firm footing. Lieutenant General Zubair Hayat the army's chief of general staff who was previously responsible for the security of the country's nuclear programme Lieutenant General Ishfaq Nadeem the commander of II Corps Multan who was viewed by many as the favourite for the job and Lieutenant-General Javed Iqbal Ramday Bahawalpur Corps Commander. Bajwa's current designation is Inspector General Training and Evaluation at the general headquarters GHQ of the Pakistan army a position Raheel also held before he became the chief of army staff. Bajwa was the general officer in command GoC of X Corps, Rawalpindi, the army's largest, which is responsible for the area along the Line of Control LoC the de facto border dividing Indian and Pakistani-administered Kashmir, has extensive experience in handling affairs in the region and the northern areas. With cross-border shelling along the Lou that began in September showing no sign of ebbing, Bajwa's military colleagues told Al Jazeera there is a likelihood that he would try to arrange a ceasefire between the two sides.