Ikram Sehgal

Major (R) Ikram Sehgal (ইকরাম সেহগাল) is a leading Pakistani defence analyst and security expert. He is a retired Pakistan Army officer.

Personal life
Sehgal was born to a Punjabi father and an Urdu-speaking Bengali mother. On his mother's side, the Bengali politicians Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy and J.A. Rahim were his grandmother's first cousins.

Military career
Ikram Sehgal graduated from the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA), Kakul, in October 1965. Commissioned into 2E Bengal (Junior Tigers), he served the regiment till 1968, before qualifying as a pilot in Army Aviation—where he served from 1968–1971.

He became a Prisoner of War (POW) in April 1971, while serving in the former East Pakistan, and was sent to the Panagarh POW Camp in India. In July 1971, Sehgal managed to escape from the prison; becoming the first Pakistani Prisoner of War to escape from an Indian POW camp.

Sehgal was posted to 44 Punjab (now 4 Sindh) in November 1971. He saw action as Company Commander in the Thar Desert, getting ‘battlefield promotion’ to the rank of Major on 13 December 1971. He took part in counter–guerrilla operations in Balochistan in 1973 before leaving the Pakistan Army. He then worked as a commercial pilot before setting up his own business in 1977, specializing in trading and counter trade. He is currently Chairman, Pathfinder Group Pakistan, which includes two of the largest private security companies in the country. Ikram Sehgal is also involved in various national and international organizations. He is Member World Economic Forum (WEF); International Organization for Migration (IOM); Director, East West Institute (EWI), a US-based think-tank; and Member, WEF Global Agenda Council (GAC) for counter-terrorism.

As a former soldier, he is known for his outspoken views on the conduct of the armed forces during the civil war in East Pakistan, which ultimately led to the secession of Bangladesh. When soldiers make war on women and children, they cease to be soldiers. That is why in the final analysis, when it came to real combat, they could not face up to bullets which is their actual job as soldiers … the terror that was unleashed by them in East Pakistan between March and November 1971 is simply inexcusable.

Later life
Ikram Sehgal is a regular contributor of articles in newspapers that include: The News and the Urdu daily Jang. In addition, he appears regularly on current affairs programs on television in his capacity as a ‘defense and security analyst’.