Akleem Akhtar, otherwise known as General Rani, was close friend and mistress of Yahya Khan during his reign.[1]
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Due to her close association with Yahya Khan and powers she exercised due to this relation, she was known as General Rani (General's Queen). Akhtar is said to have lovingly called Yahya Khan Agha Jani. It is said that during that time, she was the most powerful person after the General himself. She held no official position, but she was given full protocol. She refuted that she was second to the Yahya Khan and claimed that they were just friends.
She is the grandmother of leading pop stars Fakhre Alam[1] and Adnan Sami.
Akleen Akhtar allias Rani General was born in Gujaral, a city in Punjab, in Pakistan. She was married many times older policeman, and bore him six children. Then finally she rebelled. Once, when they were on a holiday in Murree, she threw off her burqa and told him she had had enough — that she was going to live her own life. He was beaten by her brutally.
Having been married off at an early age, she had not acquired any skills that might support an independent career. But she used to go frequently to clubs with her husband, and while they drank, she would find a chair close to the men’s toilet. That way she had come to know many rich and powerful men. She was also familiar with their basic needs, besides drink.
She was determined to beat men at their own game ‘Miyan ki juti miyan ke sir’.
(1) Having been married off at an early age, she had not acquired any skills that might support an independent career. But she used to go frequently to clubs with her husband who was in police, and while they drank, she would find a chair close to the men’s toilet. She had been observing men in positions of power throughout her married life and she had realised that all men in positions of power needed a vent and the vent they require the most is a bedmate provided through a reliable agency: The higher a man's position, the greater his demand.
General Yahya Khan was proceeding there one evening to do when he encountered a Akleen Akhtar sitting on a sofa on the way. That was the time when god gifted them for each other in future course.
(2) She knew that dumb dolls who come with no strings attached are a universal failing of men in power. After her marriage collapsed and she had to find the ways to support herself and her children, She decided to become the provider of such girls to men in need.
General Yahya khan was for her ‘Agha Jani’ and for General Yahya she was Rani General. One time Agha Jani wanted gift of super singer actress of Lollywood of that time Noor Jahan. went from Islamabad to Lahore, phoned Noor Jehan, and acquainted her with the lay of the land. Soon Yahya Khan and Noor Jehan were seen so often together that they became the pepper in the gossip mill of Pakistan. Akleen had Yahya Khan in her debt.
This and other favours made many powerful men indebted to Akleen; there was nothing she could not get done. Soon she came to be known as Rani General; she called Yahya Khan Agha Jani. She attracted not only men who had an insatiable urge for gratification, but also men who wanted something out of powerful men. Even Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Ghulam Mustapha Kar frequented her drawing room.
It looks as if she did not give Bhutto what he wanted. When he became prime minister, he put her under house arrest, and had her telephone disconnected. So after the Seventies, the influence of Rani General declined.