Controversy over resignation of Pakistan Army’s Lieutenant General Bilal Safdar

The resignation of Lieutenant General Ayman Bilal Safdar, one of the contenders for the post of chief of the Pakistan Army, has created a stir in military and political circles. The mainstream media of Pakistan is certainly silent about the development of whether  Lt. Gen. Bilal Safdar has himself decided to resign or was forced to do so, but various social media platforms and YouTubers have started making revelations related to this incident in their own way.

 Lieutenant General Ayman Bilal Safdar  was the commander of 1 Corps headquartered at Mangla Cantonment in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK).

General Officer Commanding (GOC) Lieutenant General Ayman Bilal Safdar is one of the senior most officers and is included in the top leadership of Pakistan Army. He had accused the army of being involved in rigging in the last general elections. According to revelations by Pakistani YouTubers, Lieutenant General Bilal Safdar had made remarks “against the army” in the core commander conference on March 5, 2024.

Contender for the post of Army Chief:
Lieutenant General Ayman Bilal Safdar was to retire in 2027. If the current Chief of the Pakistan Army, General Asim Munir, had retired on time as per the fixed tenure, then Lieutenant General Bilal Safdar could have got a chance to become the Army Chief in 2025. It is now being said that Army Chief Asim Munir put pressure on Lieutenant General Bilai Safdar to resign due to his ambition to remain the Army Chief for a few more years.

Lieutenant General Ayman Bilal Safdar is the second corps commander of the Pakistani Army who was dismissed or made to resign within a year. Before him, Lieutenant General Salman Faiz Ghani was dismissed from the post of GOC 4 Corps in Lahore after workers of Imran Khan’s party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) vandalized the Flag Staff House in Lahore.

Pakistani journalist and convenor of Pakistan Democracy Forum Haider Mehdi claimed that he was the first person to make public the information about the resignation of Lieutenant General Bilal Safdar. He has given a series of details of this incident. According to him, Lieutenant General Ayman Bilal Safdar was removed from GOC in Mangala on April 4 and asked to report to GHQ in Rawalpindi. Whereas instead of doing so, Bilal Safdar had resigned from his post on April 2 itself. The Pakistani Army and the President of Pakistan have also accepted the resignation of Lieutenant General Bilal Safdar. It has also been told in the news that Lieutenant General Ayman Bilal Safdar is currently in Saudi Arabia for Umrah.

Promoted two years ago:
Ayman Bilal Safdar was among a dozen officers of the Pakistan Army who were promoted from the rank of Major General to Lieutenant General in October 2022. This was the first time when so many officers were promoted simultaneously to the rank of Lieutenant General in the Pakistan Army.