Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq (Punjabi, Urdu: محمد ضياء الحق; 12 August 1924 – 17 August 1988), was the sixth President of Pakistan from 1978 until his death in 1988, having declared martial law for the third time in the country’s history in 1977. He was Pakistan’s longest-serving head of state, ruling eleven years.
After graduating from the Delhi University with a BA degree in economics, Zia saw action in World War II as a British Indian Army officer, before opting for Pakistan in 1947 and fighting in the war against India in 1965. In 1970, he led the Pakistani training mission in Jordan, proving instrumental to putting down the Black September insurgency against King Hussein. In recognition, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto approved Zia’s appointment to four-star tier, as Chief of Army Staff in 1976, over several senior officers. Following increasing civil disorder, Zia deposed Bhutto and declared martial law over the country in 1977. Bhutto was controversially tried and executed by the Supreme Court less than two years later, for authorising the murder of a political opponent.
Assuming the presidency in 1978, Zia played a major role in the Soviet war in neighboring Afghanistan whilst played an ambiguous role, in favor of Iran, during the Iran–Iraq War . Aided by the United States and Saudi Arabia, Zia systematically coordinated the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviet occupation throughout the 1980s. This culminated in the USSR’s defeat and withdrawal in 1989, but also led to the proliferation of millions of refugees, with heroin and weaponry into Pakistan’s frontier province. On the foreign front, Zia also bolstered ties with China, the European Union, the United States, and emphasised Pakistan’s role in the Islamic world, while relations with India worsened amid the Siachen conflict and accusations that Pakistan was aiding the Khalistan movement. Domestically, Zia passed broad-ranging legislation as part of Pakistan’s Islamization, acts criticised for fomenting religious intolerance. He also escalated Pakistan’s atomic bomb project, and instituted industrialisation and deregulation, helping Pakistan’s economy become among the fastest-growing in South Asia.Averaged over Zia’s rule, GDP growth was the highest in history.
After lifting martial law and holding non-partisan elections in 1985, Zia appointed Muhammad Junejo as the Prime Minister but accumulated even more presidential powers via the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution. After Junejo signed the Geneva Accords in 1988 against Zia’s wishes, and called for an inquiry into the Ojhri Camp disaster, Zia dismissed Junejo’s government and announced fresh elections in November 1988. But he was killed along with several of his top military officials and two American diplomats in a suspicious air crash near Bahawalpur on 17 August 1988. To this day, Zia remains to be a polarising figure in Pakistan’s history, credited by some for preventing wider Soviet incursions into the region as well as economic prosperity, but decried for weakening democratic institutions and passing laws encouraging Islamic fundamentalism.
Zia died in a plane crash on 17 August 1988. After witnessing a US M1 Abrams tank demonstration in Bahawalpur, Zia had left the small town in the Punjab province by C-130B Hercules aircraft. The aircraft departed from Bahawalpur Airport and was expected to reach Islamabad International Airport.Shortly after a smooth takeoff, the control tower lost contact with the aircraft. Witnesses who saw the plane in the air afterward claim it was flying erratically, then nosedived and exploded on impact. In addition to Zia, 31 others died in the plane crash, including Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Akhtar Abdur Rahman, close associate of Zia, Brigadier Siddique Salik, the American Ambassador to Pakistan Arnold Lewis Raphel and General Herbert M. Wassom, the head of the U.S. Military aid mission to Pakistan. Ghulam Ishaq Khan, the Senate Chairman announced Zia’s death on radio and TV. The manner of his death has given rise to many conspiracy theories.There is speculation that America, India, the Soviet Union (as retaliation for US-Pakistani supported attacks in Afghanistan) or an alliance of them and internal groups within Zia’s military were behind the attack.
A board of inquiry was set up to investigate the crash. It concluded ‘the most probable cause of the crash was a criminal act of sabotage perpetrated in the aircraft’. It also suggested that poisonous gases were released which incapacitated the passengers and crew, which would explain why no Mayday signal was given. There were also speculation into other facts involving the details of the investigation. A black box was not located after the crash and previous C-130 airplanes did have them installed.
Maj Gen (retd) Mahmud Ali Durrani claimed later that reports of Israeli and Indian involvement in Zia ul Haq’s plane crash were only speculations and he rejected the statement that was given by former president Ghulam Ishaq Khan that the presidential plane was blown up in the air. Durrani stated that Zia’s plane was destroyed while landing.
August 12-1924 – birthday-Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, 6th President of Pakistan