Iftikhar Khan

Who was Iftikhar Khan?

Major General Muhammed Iftikhar Khan was born on 10 January 1909. He is the brother of Pakistan's first General M Akbar Khan. After attending Sandhurst he was commissioned a Second Lieutenant on the Unattached List for the Indian Army on 29 August 1929. He then spent a year on attachment to the 2nd battalion the Manchester Regiment. He was posted to the 7th Light Cavalry and joined the Indian Army on 16 October 1930. He was promoted Lieutenant on 29 November 1931. He then transferred to the 3rd Cavalry on 1 October 1932, a regiment which was then in the process of being Indianised. He was promoted Captain 29 August 1938. During the late 1930s he served as first the Quarter Master then the Adjutant of this regiment. In 1942 he was attached to the No. 2 Indian Armoured Corps Training Center. In 1945 he was the second in command of the 45th Cavalry, a war raised armoured unit then serving in Burma. He was promoted Major 29 August 1946. He commanded the 7th Light Cavalry in Japan as part of the Occupation Forces from September to December 1946. On partition he opted to join the Pakistan Army. He was quickly promoted to Major General and on 1 January 1948 assumed the command of 10th Division. He had been nominated to become the first local Commander in Chief of the Pakistan Army after General Douglas David Gracey's retirement. However, he died in a Pakistan Airways Dakota which was flying from Lahore to Karachi when it crashed near Karachi on 13 December 1949 killing him along with Brigadier Sher Khan and 24 others before he could assume the post. He was on his way to Karachi to proceed to England for a course at the Imperial Defence College