Gul Hassan Khan

General Gul Hassan Khan was the Chief of Army Staff, Pakistan. Lieutenant General Gul Hassan, a Sunni Pashtun born in Quetta, was educated at La Martiniere College in Lucknow and the Royal Indian Military College (now the Rashtriya Indian Military College), Dehradun, India. In 1933 he was commissioned in the Indian Army. After independence, he served the Pakistan Army for 25 years. In 1968, he was made the Chief of General Staff (CGS) of the Pakistan Army.

Following the defeat of Pakistan to the Indian Military and the secession of East Pakistan (present day Bangladesh), he became the Chief of Army Staff as Yahya Khan, his predecessor had to resign after widespread protests in Pakistan. He thus became the first person to be appointed to the post in a divided Pakistan (erstwhile West Pakistan). His tenure, however, was shortlived. He was ousted as army chief on March 3, 1972 by President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. He was allegedly huddled up in a car and taken to Lahore by road by Ghulam Mustafa Khar, a politician and a close associate of Bhutto's.He married later on with an Austrian lady and had a son, Sher Hassan Khan.

He had three brothers and a sister. He has relatives still residing in Pabbi near Peshawar, and in Quetta, Pakistan. General Gul Hassan Khan died in 1999 and was buried in Pabbi in Nowshera District (Main town of Chearat Cant, Chowki Mumriaz, Taroo Jaba, Akber Pura).

In the last few years of his life he was dividing his time between Vienna, Austria and Rawalpindi, Pakistan. He wrote a book "Memoirs of Lt. Gen. Gul Hassan Khan".

See also

*General Sahabzada Yaqub Khan
*General Musa Khan
*General Rao Farman Ali
*General Mitha

Further reading

* Gul Hassan Khan, "Memoirs of Lt.Gen.Gul Hassan Khan", OUP Pakistan (1994) ISBN 0-19-577445-0

External links

* [http://www.defencejournal.com/2000/mar/gul-hassan.htm Article about General Gul Hassan]