In a surprise move late on Saturday, the military said it was replacing Sindh Rangers DG Major General Rizwan Akhtar with Major General Bilal Akbar.
According to Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), Major General Bilal will join the Sindh Rangers in August.
According to the ISPR statement, Major General Bilal Akbar will work with outgoing Sindh Rangers DG Major General Rizwan Akhtar for a month to have a better understanding of the law and order situation in Sindh in general and violence-hit Karachi in particular, where Rangers have a lead role in restoring peace.
The ISPR spokesman said Akhtar, who has successfully completed his tenure, will continue to perform his duties as Rangers DG till Maj-Gen Bilal Akbar takes over.
KARACHI OPERATION:
The decision by the military headquarters comes at a time when a joint operation by police and Rangers against terrorists and criminal elements in Karachi is in full swing.
The joint operation has been the subject of much criticism. According to police statistics, 1,685 people have fallen victim to targeted killings in the city since the start of the operation.
The city’s largest party, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), has raised serious reservations against the operation in which, they say, dozens of MQM workers and sympathisers have fallen victim to extrajudicial killings.
Earlier, Karachi Corps Commander Leiutenant-General Sajjad Ghani listened to MQM chief Altaf Hussain’s grievances over the phone and assured him a committee would investigate the party’s complaints against the operation.
According to reports, the MQM chief had said he would write an open letter to Chief of the Army Staff General Raheel Sharif about the “extrajudicial killings of MQM workers by Rangers, their arrests and torture” during the Karachi operation.
An MQM source said that Hussain decided not to write the letter after the Karachi Corps commander assured him that “action would be taken against any officer of the paramilitary Rangers involved in any illegal act.”
