The General Headquarters (abbreviated Army GHQ) is the direct reporting and the command post of the Pakistan Army, located in the

Chaklala Chaklala is a major suburban town of Rawalpindi in the Punjab (Pakistan), Punjab province of Pakistan. It covers an area of (8,405 acres). The population of the town is 333,115 according to the 2023 census. Chaklala Cantonment is one of the thre ...

at the vicinity of

Rawalpindi Rawalpindi is the List of cities in Punjab, Pakistan by population, third-largest city in the Administrative units of Pakistan, Pakistani province of Punjab, Pakistan, Punjab. It is a commercial and industrial hub, being the list of cities in P ...

, adjacent to the Joint Staff Headquarters (JS HQ).

History

In 1851, the

British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

made an permanent

headquarter Headquarters (often referred to as HQ) notes the location where most or all of the important functions of an organization are coordinated. The term is used in a wide variety of situations, including private sector corporations, non-profits, mil ...

in Rawalpindi when Marquess of Dalhousie decided to stationed the 53rd Infantry Regiment to protect

from Afghan intervention. In 1854,

Robert Milman Robert Milman (25 January 1816 - 15 February 1876) was an Anglican bishop in the second half of the 19th century. He was born at Easton in Gordano, Somerset the third son of Sir William George Milman, 2nd Baronet, of Levaton in Devonshire and wa ...

from the Diocese of Calcutta had built the city's first Garrison Church and a telegraph office. It is also the site where Robert Milman is buried following his death in Rawalpindi in 1876. On 14 August 1947,

Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Army The Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Army (abbreviation: C-in-C of the Pakistan Army) was the professional head of the Pakistan Army from 1947 to 1972. As an administrative position, the appointment holder had main operational command autho ...

General A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air force, air and space forces, marines or naval infantry. In some usages, the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colone ...

Frank Messervy General Sir Frank Walter Messervy, (9 December 1893 – 2 February 1974) was a British Indian Army officer in the First and Second World Wars. Following its independence, he was the first commander-in-chief of the Pakistan Army from August 194 ...

decided to establish the army headquarters of the Pakistan Army at the

, which was also the headquarter of the Northern Command of the former

British Indian Army The Indian Army was the force of British Raj, British India, until Indian Independence Act 1947, national independence in 1947. Formed in 1895 by uniting the three Presidency armies, it was responsible for the defence of both British India and ...

; Gen. Messervy established it as "GHQ Pakistan", which he derived from

GHQ India General Headquarters, India was the headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief, India, who commanded the British military forces in India, including the British Indian Army, after the Kitchener Reforms of 1903. It succeeded Headquarters, India which ...

. The Army's GHQ was viewed as a temporary post in Rawalpindi since its where Gen. Messervy was based in. Since its establishment, the Army GHQ in Rawalpindi has faced many problems in

civil–military relations Civil–military relations (Civ-Mil or CMR) describes the relationship between military organizations and civil society, military organizations and other government bureaucracies, and leaders and the military. CMR incorporates a diverse, ofte ...

context and criticism at broader level since the nation's capital was based in Karachi in past, and now in Islamabad. Until 2006, the Army GHQ's command post was based in

but later moved to

, near the vicinities of the PAF Base Chaklala and the JS HQ military headquarters. Since 2017, the Pakistan Army has been slowly moving its headquarters to nation's capital,

Islamabad Islamabad (; , ; ) is the capital city of Pakistan. It is the country's tenth-most populous city with a population of over 1.1 million and is federally administered by the Pakistani government as part of the Islamabad Capital Territory. Bu ...

to be able to merge with the air force and the navy.

Gates

Secretariat

The Pakistan Army's GHQ is a command post of the Pakistan Army where the secretariat of the Chief of the Army Staff functions to ensure the ceremonial and operational command of the army. There are ten branches of the Pakistan Army that are headed by the lieutenant-generals and multiple administrative corps that are commanded by the director-generals who are ranked at the major-general. Each of the army's branches and the director-generals of the administrative corps works under the

Chief of the General Staff The Chief of the General Staff (CGS) is a post in many armed forces (militaries), the head of the military staff. List * Chief of the General Staff (Abkhazia) * Chief of General Staff (Afghanistan) * Chief of the General Staff (Albania) * C ...

(CGS). The chief of general staff, who usually heads the Army GHQ Staff, reports directly to chief of army staff on daily routine basis.

Branches of the Pakistan Army

There are ten branches of the Pakistan Army that are headed by the lieutenant-generals and multiple administrative corps that are commanded by the director-generals who are ranked at the major-general. The Chief of Army Staff Secretariat is not considered as a part of the army branch but functions separately as an office of the chief of army staff.

Security

Incidents, breaches, and relocation efforts

In 1970s, the Army's GHQ became a focal point of massive arrests and incidents of military police's

baton charge A baton charge is a coordinated tactic for dispersing crowds of people, usually used by police, paramilitary or military in response to public disorder. In the Indian subcontinent, a long bamboo stick, called a '' lathi'' in Bengali, Hindi, ...

on protestors when politicians

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (17 March 1920 – 15 August 1975), also known by the honorific Bangabandhu, was a Bangladeshi politician, revolutionary, statesman and activist who was the founding president of Bangladesh. As the leader of Bangl ...

(in 1970) and

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (5 January 1928 – 4 April 1979) was a Pakistani barrister and politician who served as the fourth president of Pakistan from 1971 to 1973 and later as the ninth Prime Minister of Pakistan, prime minister of Pakistan from 19 ...

(in 1977) were taken into custody. The

Pakistani Taliban The Pakistani Taliban, officially the Tehreek-i-Taliban-e-Pakistan (TTP), is an umbrella organization of various Islamist armed militant groups operating along the Afghan–Pakistani border. Formed in 2007 by Baitullah Mehsud, its current ...

have repeatedly attacked the headquarters. The first attack took place in 2007. Others followed in 2008, resulting in

Operation Janbaz The Pakistan Army General Headquarters attack (Codename: Operation Janbaz; ), was a hostage-rescue mission carried by SSG Division on 10 October 2009, when 10 gunmen in military uniform opened fire on the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi, P ...

; the 2008 Lal Masjid bombing; the December 2009 Rawalpindi attack; and the 2014 Rawalpindi suicide bombing. To prevent the Taliban's repeated infiltration and to address the issue of increase security, the headquarters, together with Joint Staff Headquarters, has been slowly moving to Islamabad to integrate with the navy and air force's headquarters that are located in much safer zones of Islamabad, since 2017.

History

Gates

Secretariat

Branches of the Pakistan Army

Security

Incidents, breaches, and relocation efforts

See also

References

Further reading