Major General Nigar Johar has become the first female army officer in history of the country to be appointed as the Lieutenant General of Pakistan Army.
“The officer has also been appointed as the first female Surgeon General of the army,” said a press release by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the media wing of Pakistan army.
Lieutenant General Johar hails from Panjpai, a small town in the backward district Swabi in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. She is currently serving as Commandant Military Hospital (CMH) in Rawalpindi.
In 2017, she also became the third woman officer in the history of Pakistan to reach the rank of Major General. Lt Gen Johar belongs to the Army Medical Corps and is the niece of Major (R) Mohammad Aamir, a former Pakistan Army officer who served in the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Her father Colonel Qadir also served in the ISI.
Lt Gen Johar Khan is now the first three-star general in the Pakistan Army. In 2015, she was featured in a video released by the ISPR honouring women in the Pakistan armed forces. In the video, she says: “Pakistan is my country and I was born here. I was raised here and I think there is no match to Pakistan to anywhere in the world.”
She completed her high school at the Convent Girls High School, Rawalpindi in 1978. She joined the Army Medical College in 1981 graduating in 1985. She is from the 5th MBBS course of Army Medical College and she has served as female company commander of Ayesha Company at the same college.
In 2010, she completed the examination for membership of the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan. In 2012, she completed her diploma in Advance Medical Administration through the Armed Forces Post Graduate Medical Institute and in 2015; she has received a Master of Public Health degree from the same institute.
