General Bajwa's vision: A terror-free Pakistan
General Bajwa took charge as Pakistan's 16th army chief on November 30.
LAHORE (Daily Dunya) - At sunset, on November 26 of 2016, Lieutenant-general Qamar Javed Bajwa along with his whole family was at grave of his beloved mother when he received a call stating that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif wanted to meet him. His family forthwith left cemetery for their home where Bajwa’s aides had already congregated with an unsaid foretell.
Bajwa put up his uniform and departed for Prime Minister Nawaz’s residence in Islamabad.
"My father believes in supremacy of constitution. My father always desires a Pakistan where preference is given to institutions over individuals’, Bajwa’s 27-year-old-son Saad told Newsweek.
General Bajwa was born into a military family on November 11, 1960. Bajwa is youngest of his five siblings. Bajwa got commission in Pakistan Army in 1978 and in 1980 he was appointed in Baloch Regiment. Bajwa has attended multiple military courses and exercises in US and Canada. He has commanded Northern Areas and served as commandant of the Army’s School of Infantry and Tactics, Quetta. General Bajwa was inspector-general for training and evaluation at the Army’s General Headquarters, Rawalpindi, before taking charge as army chief.
General Bajwa has also earned immense respect in Indian army camps during his peacekeeping mission in Democratic Republic of Congo in 2007. There he worked with India’s likely new army chief.
Ex-Indian army chief has commended General Bajwa with words like ‘outstanding and professional soldier’.
Bajwa has broader historical worldview, thanks to his library which is entirely decorated with books on history.
General Bajwa enjoys playing and watching cricket. His favorite cricket stars are Sir Viv Richards and Javed Miandad. In singing, he relishes listening Pakistan’s great Noor Jehan.
Irresponsibility is one thing that our father can’t bear, reported his son.
The foremost objective of COAS, according to his sons, would be to counter menace of extremism and terrorism.
In beginning of this month, General Bajwa made it crystal clear that armed forces would left no stone unturned in order to fortify gains earned in military’s anti-terror campaigns. He also made it unambiguous that terror hideouts would be eliminated without any discrimination.
Operation Zarb-e-Azb was initiated after a terrorist attack struck Karachi Airport on June 8, 2014 and which later earned more public support after terrorists butchered innocent children at APS, Peshawar on December 16, 2014.
Remembering appalling events of that terrible day, Saad narrates his father’s words as follow:
"This has to be the end. There must be consensus against terrorism; it is the biggest threat to Pakistan’s existence."
General Bajwa has pictures of martyred APS children framed in his office and these pictures continuously knock on his brain that he is here to successfully end the battle which he is determined to win.
