Major General Asif Ghafoor, the man known for making a series of gaffes, controversial posts and miscalculations on social media over months, including extending support to Bollywood actor Deepika Padukone over her visit to the JNU in Delhi earlier this month, was on Thursday removed from the post of the Director-General of the Pakistan's Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR).
Ghafoor, who was serving as the DG ISPR since December 2016, has been posted as General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the Pakistan Army's 40th Infantry Division in Okara.
The announcement comes as Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa called on Prime Minister Imran Khan. Quoting sources, Dawn reported that professional matters relating to the military were discussed during the meeting.
Earlier this month, Ghafoor had praised Deepika Padukone as a "brave person" for standing with the protestors at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. The tweet, which misspelled Deepika's surname, was deleted later by Ghafoor.
This is not the first time that the Pakistan Army spokesperson committed a faux pas by making spelling errors. In October, last year, Ghafoor had called Kashmir the jugular "vain" of Pakistan, inviting trolls.
Ghafoor was quoting a statement by Pakistan Army Chief Qamar Javed Bajwa which reiterated that the country is fully "configured, prepared, and determined" to defend the "honour, dignity, and territorial integrity of motherland at all cost. Kashmir is jugular vain of Pakistan and no compromise shall be made which denies right of self-determination to our brave Kashmiri brethren."
In July 2018, Ghafoor attracted ridicule after posting a doctored video of war hero and retired IAF Air Marshal, Denzil Keelor.
Ghafoor had shared a video of Keelor on his Twitter account, claiming that the war veteran was talking about the "Indian failure" during the dogfight between the Indian Air Force (IAF) and Pakistan Air Force (PAF) on February 27 this year, just a day after the Balakot airstrikes.
Netizens were quick to point out that the video was recorded in 2015, approximately four years before the Balakot and its ensuing incidents occurred in 2019.In fact, the interview titled 'Nehru lost India the war: Air Marshal Denzil Keelor speaks about India's battle losses' was posted by Wilderness Films India on August 9, 2015, on the video-sharing website, YouTube. The former Air Marshal was invited by the production house for a talk on the wars of 1962 and 1965, according to its description.
( With inputs from ANI )