Yahya Khan

Biography

Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan was born in Chakwal in British India in 1917, the son of a police officer from Peshawar. He studied at the Colonel Brown Cambridge School in Dehradun and took a BA at the University of the Punjab in Lahore, then trained at the Indian Military Academy and was commissioned into the British Indian Army in 1939. Serving with the 4th Indian Division in the Second World War, he was captured in North Africa in 1942 and escaped from a prisoner-of-war camp in Italy.

After partition he joined the Pakistan Army, became its youngest brigadier, and held senior staff posts, including chief of the general staff from 1957 to 1962. He commanded the 7th Infantry Division during the 1965 war with India, and in September 1966 President Ayub Khan made him commander-in-chief of the army. When mass protests forced Ayub out in March 1969, Yahya took power as president and chief martial law administrator, abrogating the constitution.

In 1970 he issued the Legal Framework Order, which dissolved the One Unit of West Pakistan and set the rules for Pakistan's first direct general election, held in December 1970. The Awami League of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman won a national majority on the strength of its sweep in East Pakistan, but power was not transferred. On 25 March 1971 Yahya launched Operation Searchlight, a military crackdown in East Pakistan that began the Bangladesh genocide and the war of independence.

In December 1971 the conflict widened into war with India, and Pakistani forces in the east surrendered. Yahya resigned and handed the presidency to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. He was kept under house arrest until 1979 and died in Rawalpindi in 1980.