LIEUTENANT GENERAL AMIR ABDULLAH KHAN NIAZI -HJ, MC
(1915 – 2 Feb 2004)
PA – 477. Lieutenant General Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi HJ (Bar), SK, MC,was born in Balokhel in 1915 near Mianwali. Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi got commission in the Indian Army in 1934 . He displayed immense courage during the Burma campaign in world war-II and was nicknamed “Tiger” by the commander of his brigade, and later awarded the military the military cross. He saw the action in the Middle East, Singapore, Malaya, Indonesia as well as in Kashmir and was wounded five times. With TWENTY FOUR (24)MEDALS Niazi was one of the most decorated soldier of the Pakistan Army.
Niazi held various command posting during the war of 1965 and was awarded Hilal-e-Jurrat to military award for outstanding courage, gallantry and skillful handling of his fighting force in an armoured engagement against the Indian forces. He also served as Martial Law Administrator in Karachi and Lahore, subsequently Niazi Khan was posted to Quetta where he was commander of the school of Infantry and Tactics and taught at the command and staff college. While heading the 10th division in Lahore in April 1971
In 1971 war, Niazi surrendered his forces of (less than) 95000 men to the Indian Armed Forces and the Mukti Bahini guerrilla armed resistance force. He stated that he had acted on the orders of the West Pakistan Military High Command under General Yahya Khan. After the war, other parties like Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto held him as personally responsible for the surrender, and he was accused of being involved in Pakistan’s human rights violations in Bangladesh .
He was dismissed by President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto from his general officer rank and his military decorations, while he sought a court-martial to prove his innocence, filing petitions through his military lawyers both in the civilian Supreme Court of Pakistan and in the Judge Advocate General Branch of the Pakistan Armed Forces.