ISLAMABAD: In a surprise move late Saturday night, the military said it was replacing DG Rangers Sindh Major General Rizwan Akhtar with another senior military officer.

A spokesman for the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said Major General Bilal Akbar has been designated as the next director-general of the Sindh Rangers paramilitary force.

“Major General Bilal will join the Sindh Rangers in August and will have an overlap of one month before taking over charge as DG Rangers,” said a short statement from the ISPR.

The ISPR spokesman said Akhtar, who has successfully completed his tenure, will continue to perform his duties as DG Rangers until Maj-Gen Bilal Akbar takes over.

Related: Karachi operation in dire straits

The decision by the military headquarters comes at a time when a joint operation by police and Rangers against terrorists and criminal elements in Karachi is in full swing.

The city’s largest party, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), has raised serious reservations against the operation in which, they say, dozens of MQM workers and sympathisers have fallen victim to extrajudicial killings.

On Friday, Karachi Corps Commander Lt-Gen Sajjad Ghani listened to MQM chief Altaf Hussain’s grievances over phone and assured him a committee would investigate the party’s complaints against the operation.

The MQM chief had earlier said he would write an open letter to Chief of the Army Staff Gen Raheel Sharif about the “extrajudicial killings of Urdu-speaking innocent workers of the MQM by Rangers, their arrests and torture” during the Karachi operation.

Also read: Muttahida’s complaints to be looked into, says general

An MQM source told Dawn that Hussain decided not to write the letter after the Karachi corps commander assured him that “action would be taken against any officer of the paramilitary Rangers found involved in any illegal act.”

The joint operation has been the subject of much criticism. According to police statistics, 1,685 people have fallen victim to targeted killings in the city since the start of the operation.