The Appointment Committee of the Cabinet on Monday selected Lieutenant General AK Bhat the new director general of military operations. Bhatt, who will be in charge of all Army operations including those along the Line of Control, replaced Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh.

Bhat is currently posted at Army headquarters as the additional director general of complaint and advisory board. He belongs to the Gorkha Rifles, reported PTI.

Meanwhile, Lt Gen Singh has been shifted to head the Strike 1 Corps in Mathura. In the rejig, Lieutenant General Shokin Chauhan, who led the Strike 1 Corps, has been appointed the new chief of the Assam Rifles.

This comes two days after Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif selected Lieutenant General Qamar Javed Bajwa as their new chief of army staff. The appointments come when relations between Islamabad and New Delhi have worsened following the Indian Army’s surgical strikes on militant camps along the LoC.

On November 24, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Vikas Swarup had accused Pakistan of violating the ceasefire agreement 27 times between November 12 and November 21. Similarly, Islamabad had claimed that three Pakistani soldiers and nine civilians had been killed in cross-border firing when Indian troops launched a massive attack against Pakistani posts along the LoC. However, during unscheduled talks between the DGMOs of the two countries, India had said that the Army had only targeted locations from where Pakistani forces had carried out ceasefire violations.