Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq

Biography

Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq was born in Jalandhar, Punjab, in 1924; his father worked at Army General Headquarters in Delhi. He graduated in history from St. Stephen's College, Delhi, in 1943, was commissioned into the British Indian Army and served in Burma in the Second World War. After partition he joined the Pakistan Army, trained at the US Army Command and General Staff College in 1962-1964, and from 1967 to 1970 headed a Pakistani training mission in Jordan, where he advised Jordanian forces during Black September.

Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto chose him over several more senior generals as Chief of Army Staff in March 1976. After mass protests against the disputed 1977 election, Zia overthrew Bhutto on 5 July 1977 and imposed martial law as Chief Martial Law Administrator. He kept postponing the promised elections, and Bhutto, tried for authorising a political murder, was hanged in April 1979 after Zia turned down appeals for clemency.

Zia declared himself president in September 1978. He pressed an Islamisation programme, curtailed civil liberties and the press, accelerated the nuclear weapons programme and, with US and Saudi support, channelled aid to the Afghan mujahideen fighting the Soviet occupation. After non-party elections in 1985 he ended martial law but kept sweeping powers through the Eighth Amendment, and in 1988 he dismissed Prime Minister Muhammad Khan Junejo.

On 17 August 1988 Zia died with senior generals and the US ambassador when their aircraft crashed near Bahawalpur. He remains Pakistan's longest-serving de facto ruler and a divisive figure.