In 1971, he led the Pakistan Navy against the Indian Navy but the war ended with the devastating effects on Pakistan Navy which lost the number of warships off the coast of Karachi with no cover from the Pakistan Air Force (PAF). The Navy NHQ was located in Karachi which came under intense attacks by the Indian Navy and the Indian Air Force which crippled the Navy.[4] The casualties inflicted to Navy included the 408 personnel dead at sea and ~3,000 personnels including 1300 naval officers were held as prisoners of war.: 140 [11] Many of his requests to retaliate against the Indian Navy were rebuffed by the Air MarshalAbdul Rahim Khan who reportedly quoted: "Well, old boy, this happens in war. I am sorry your ships have been sunk. We shall try to do something in the future.": 89–90 [11]
After the war, he was subsequently dismissed from his military service and relieved from the command of the Navy on 22 December 1971 along with the chiefs of army and the air force.[4] He, along with Lieutenant-GeneralGul Hassan and Air MarshalAbdul Rahim Khan were forcefully retired from their commission on 3 March 1972 in a stand up military trial led by the combined JAG Branch.[4]
After his dismissal from the military service, Hassan permanently settled in DHA Society in Karachi and was the first president of the Defence Society Residents Association (DSRA)–a neighborhood watch– from 1981 to 1990.[4] Throughout his retirement, he avoided the news media to offer any comments on the fall of Dhaka and died of an old age from a prolonged illness and died on 24 June 2012.[1][2] The news of his death went unnoticed in the media and was buried in Karachi War Cemetery.[2]
^ abShabbir, Usman. "The First Destroyer". pakdef.org. « PakDef Military Consortium. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 2 January 2017.
^Organization, Southeast Asia Treaty (1969). SEATO Record. Retrieved 3 January 2017.
^ abGoldrick, James (1997). "§The 1971 Indo-Pakistan war at sea"(PDF). No Easy Answers: The Development of the Navies of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, 1945-1996. Melbourne, [au]: Lancer Publishers. ISBN9781897829028. Retrieved 3 January 2017.