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Thursday March 28, 2024

Remembering Gen Hamid Javed

By Major Gen (r) Rehmat Khan
June 16, 2019

Lieutenant General (r) Hamid Javed was commissioned in one of the elite Armoured Corps Regiments passing at the top of his course at Pakistan Military Academy. His career trajectory was enviable, could be the most cherished dream of any army officer. During his military service he was selected on a diplomatic assignment of the highest merit in which he remained military attache in USA. After commanding a mechanised division he was posted to Heavy Industries Taxila (HIT). This was during 90s and army was desperately trying to upgrade its tank fleet to retain combat effectiveness post millennium. He accepted the challenge, in fact volunteered to develop a tank for Pakistan. There were very strong professional dissent, as some very important persons felt that we didn’t have the wherewithal to develop a tank. Equipped with confidence on his team and trust of the successive army chiefs he successfully built a tank, which could be counted among the most contemporary tanks of the world. Al Khalid Tank was costing Pakistan much less, in fact almost half the cost of some of the western tanks. This is widely known that Lt Gen Hamid led the Tank Development Project and produced Al Khalid Tank for Pakistan but what is not known outside the army is that he carried out modernisation programme of the entire tank fleet of the army within the allocated budget.

After the end of a very successful innings in the service of the state, he was thinking of starting some community welfare project. God, in His infinity mercy and kindness, fulfilled his wish. Gen Jehandad (JD), who had started Al-Shifa Eye Trust for the eye treatment of the poor and underprivileged requested him to be his successor. Within a week of this nomination Gen J D passed away suddenly and it fell on Gen Hamid to pick up this welfare project while he had not even fully fathomed the intricacies of the Project. Indeed Gen JD had started this welfare project and laid its foundation and started the hospitals but Gen Hamid refined the structure of the service.

Today Al-Shifa Trust consists of four fully functional eye hospitals and fifth one is ready to become operative. This trust provides eye treatment including complicated surgeries to more than a million persons every year. More than 70% of these patients are provided free treatment and the remaining are given this service at subsidised rates.

Al-Shifa employs some of the best eye specialist of the country. It has established university level education facilities for the eye technicians turning out hundreds of trained specialists. While working in this field he realised that there is a fairly large number of children who are suffering from various eye diseases and there is no dedicated children eye hospital in the country. He decided to establish a separate Eye Hospital for Children. His dream is about to materialise and by the end of the year Al-Shifa will have the biggest Children Eye Hospital in Asia.

He would always worry that poor people should not become blind because they cannot reach the hospital so he started an ‘outreach programme’ in which almost every week the outreach teams would visit remote areas of Pakistan and deliver the services at the door steps of the poor. Most of these teams were equipped to carry out field manageable surgeries including cataract.

Gen Hamid, a dignified and humble man, was bestowed with exceptional mind by the Creator. He used all his abilities, his energies and experience for the good of the country and in the service of the people. Anyone retiring as a three star general is considered lucky but here is someone who not only achieved these dizzy heights of career but also dedicated the last ten years of his life to the service of the poor and underprivileged, pro bono. He could be a role model for the youth as in him they can see that how much service one can render in one life.

He, like Gen JD, would say that the most difficult thing in managing the trust was to ask for donations. It’s difficult for any honourable man to ask someone for financial assistance. But after reflecting for a few seconds he would say that it was worth it. It was worth it for the fellow human beings and for the God to whom he returned very peacefully on Friday night on fourth of Ramazan this year. What a man who rose to become an icon but always took pride in the last part of his life where he rendered service to the people without taking or seeking any type of material benefit. A noble man who won’t wear religion on the sleeve but rendered service to the people only to thank Allah, to whom he returned with dignity. May Allah bless his soul