However, a senior army officer in Rawalpindi, who requested anonymity, refuted that the Army leadership has ordered any drive against those sporting beards in the armed forces. To a question, the army officer dispelled the impression that Major Zaheer was punished for growing beard. “The action against him was purely taken on disciplinary basis for refusing to obey his seniors which was tantamount to disobeying the institutional regulations and it should not be exploited to defame the military leadership”, he added while reminding that Zaheer’s petition has been filed by Col (R) Inamur Rahim who has already challenged in the Islamabad High Court the extension granted to COAS General Kayani.
The Colonel was subjected to severe torture on November 14, 2012 in Rawalpindi by unidentified assailants, a few days after he had filed the petition. But Major Zaheeruddin is not the first officer of the Pakistani armed forces who has been forcibly retired from the military service for his refusal to trim his long beard. Way back in March 2005, then Army Chief General Pervez Musharraf had dismissed five officers of the Pakistan Air Force following their refusal to shave off their beards despite repeated warnings by their seniors. The move was a part of the General’s efforts to rein in the fundamentalist elements who had tried to kill him in Rawalpindi twice in a short span of one month while using suicide bombers. The PAF officers who had been forcibly retired in August 2005 were all pilots of the fighter planes including Squadron Leader Mohsin Hayat Ranjha, Squadron Leader Naveed Riaz, Flight Lieutenant Mohammad Saqib, Flight Lieutenant Mohammad Ajmal and Flight Lieutenant Fazl-e-Rabbi. They had refused to trim their beards, saying they were doing so in line with the teachings of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH).
