17

The road to hell
Sahibzada Raoof Ali, while talking to me one evening in late 1976, pre­dicted that new elections would be held shortly.
“How come, sir?” I asked him. “There are still about two years to go be­fore elections will be due. Why should Bhutto Sahib bring it for­ward?”
“To satisfy the Americans,” he replied.
During at a meeting on narcotics, a senior U.S. delegate had told Sa­hib­zada Sa­hib that Presi­dent-elect Jimmy Carter had decided that Ameri­can aid in future would be given only to the genuinely elected governments in the Third World because backing the dictators there had made America unpopular among their people. Sahibzada thought that Bhutto was quite shrewd and would like to get a fresh mandate before he dealt with the new Ameri­can ad­ministration.
In those days, I was not in the mainstream of the general admini­stra­tion but did hear about many misdeeds of the Bhutto government. Punjab was seething with resentment and despondency under the op­pression of a ruthless administration. The people were losing faith in the due process of law. Some friends of Mustafa Khar had been taken to Dulai Camp in Azad Kashmir and were being tortured there without even admitting that they were in cus­tody. Writ petitions were filed in the Lahore High Court for their release but Azad Kashmir, where the camp was located, was out of its jurisdiction. In public perception, Bhutto was responsible for the murder of Nawab Muhammad Ahmad Khan. (He was later tried on this charge and was ultimately hanged. More about it in the next chapter.) Hanif Ramay had been dismissed and sent from the Chief Minister House to the infamous interrogation center in the La­hore Fort for pleading in his book, “The Case of the Punjab,” a fair deal for the largest province. Raja Munawwar and many of Ramay’s other friends had joined the Muslim League. Nawab Sadiq Husain Qureshi, consid­ered to be only a stooge of Bhutto and without any following of his own, had become the Chief Minister. Jama’at-i-Is­lami, Tehrik-i-Istiqlal and Pakistan Democratic Party, under their respec­tive lead­ers, Mian Tufail Muhammad, Asghar Khan and Nawabzada Nasrulla, were very active in mobilizing the public opinion against the oppressive govern­ment.
In the Punjab, there were frequent bomb blasts, for which the govern­ment blamed the National Awami Party and its leader, Wali Khan, but the people pointed their fingers towards Bhutto and his Federal Security Force. An ASI of FSF in plain clothes was caught red-handed by passengers at the Lahore railway station while planting a bomb in the bathroom of the com­partment in which Air Marshal Asghar Khan was traveling so that a case could be made against him and his party. The ASI was saved by the Rail­way Police from being lynched by the public but in the pro­cess he blurted out his identity. The press had been gagged and even an incident like that could not find any men­tion. The news, as it happens in such condi­tions, traveled far and wide by word of mouth.
There was turmoil elsewhere also. NWFP was already afire with Wali Khan and other NAP leaders facing their trial for treason before a tribunal in Hyderabad. Balochistan had been trampled by army action since long and most of the leaders there had fled to Afghanistan. Even situ­ation in Sindh, the home province of Bhutto, was not calm. There were disturbing reports from Karachi.
There was fear all around. The administration, thoroughly unnerved, had become totally subservient and was willing to carry out all orders, right or wrong, of the rulers. I could see a strong storm coming but most public ser­vants thought everything was under tight control. The Intelligence Bu­reau, Inter Services Intelli­gence, Special Branches of the provinces and the district ad­ministra­tions were describing the situation as “most ideal.” Such assess­ments could not be made after what had been done to the people un­less the officers were totally oblivious of the situation on the ground. So I could not agree with colleagues in the intelligence agencies, who would re­peat the same views to me also. Only a politician with insight can make a realistic assess­ment of the political situation, not an obsequious bureaucrat, whose mind works in a to­tally different way. A bureaucrat will always be indifferent, if not hostile, to public feelings. It will take an extraordinary ef­fort for him to have empathy and identity with public feelings and reach the right con­clu­sions. So, I have always been suspicious of the bureaucratic assess­ments of public opinion on politics and social issues.
By then Bhutto had been surrounded by those who urged “strong admin­istrative approach,” which would cause only al­ienation of the people. The so-called strong and shrewd administrators like Saeed Ahmad Khan, Waqar Ah­mad, Masood Mahmood, Wakil Khan and their ilk had already taken Bhutto on the dark path of illegality and criminality to a point of no return.

Bureaucrats have their way. My friend, Tikka Muhammad Iqbal Khan, an intelligent, well-informed and saga­cious poli­tician, was close to Bhutto. He asked me for my assessment several times and I explained to him the risks in holding elec­tions. I pointed out the loss of Bhutto cha­risma, that had been caused by high-handedness and foolishness of his so-called strong administrators. He agreed with me generally but said that the assessments of all intelli­gence agencies and senior officers about elections were totally different from mine. He could not persuade Bhutto to change his mind and the bureaucrats had the last word. The general elections to the Na­tional and Provincial Assemblies were an­nounced to be held on March 7 and 10, 1977, respectively. Carried away by the possibility of a dazzling display of popularity, Bhutto had gambled his po­litical career on the as­sessments of a few bureaucrats, who had no awareness of the public mood and political dy­namics and probably were also not loyal to him.
Immediately after the announcement of elections, nine opposition par­ties joined to form the Pakistan National Alliance (PNA), something Bhutto had been told was not likely. It was a severe blow to Bhutto’s hopes for a two-thirds majority but now it was too late to do anything except to concen­trate on the election campaign and administrative manipulations. Bhutto based his ap­peal to the people on his achievements in foreign affairs. He had re­covered occupied territory as well as POWs without conceding any­thing to India. There were no war trials and no division of assets with Bang­ladesh. Then he had really put the scattered pieces together and built up the morale of the peo­ple and the army. He also gave the country a consen­sus constitution. He genuinely felt proud of his achievements, little realizing that he had squan­dered away everything by rid­ing roughshod in matters of in­ternal administra­tion. He forgot that oppressive measures had not helped Yahya Khan even under martial law. How could such methods help a poli­tician, whose authority depended entirely on the goodwill of the people?
As the election campaign picked up, PNA was dominating while PPP ap­peared to be on the run. The PNA played on the theme of inhu­man treat­ment and tyranny by Bhutto against his political adversaries and at­tracted tremen­dous public response. The religious parties in the PNA mo­bilized their committed and diehard workers. Bhutto also committed a seri­ous blunder by getting himself elected unopposed from Larkana. To prevent him from filing his nomi­nation papers in time, the abduction of his oppo­nent, Maulana Jan Mu­hammad Abbasi, of Jama’at-i-Islami, was arranged, allegedly by Khalid Kharal, Deputy Commissioner (later Information Minis­ter in Benazir’s second government). All Chief Ministers followed the exam­ple set by their leader and got themselves elected unopposed. Thus a linger­ing doubt was cast over the whole election process right from the beginning.
In that suspicious and charged atmosphere, the elections to the Na­tional Assembly were held on March 7. The people showed great enthusi­asm and participated in large numbers. Most people believed that PNA had won but the results next day gave a landslide victory to the PPP. There was a wide­spread rejection of the results and the PNA leadership announced the boycott of the provincial elections scheduled for March 10.
I saw the roads deserted on March 8 as I traveled from Rawal­pindi to La­hore by road. The people appeared to be in a state of shock as if they had been betrayed and robbed. The deadly silence spoke vol­umes and could be the pre­cursor of a big storm. The boycott of elec­tions to the Pro­vincial As­semblies on March 10 was complete because the polling stations had been de­serted and very few voters turned up. Still, the official results showed “heavy turn-out.” That claim washed away whatever was left of the credibility of the elections. Thus, any remaining doubts about the alle­ga­tions of rigging in the Na­tional Assembly elections were also gone.

Beginning of the end. It did not take long for the Pakistan Na­tional Al­liance to give momentum to its agitation against Bhutto. It soon organ­ized itself into a movement, with highly motivated wings for students, women, lawyers and la­bour. A large procession, led by Asghar Khan, was taken out in Lahore from Nila Gumbad, near Anarkali Bazaar. Then pro­cessions started coming out everywhere despite unprecedented repression by the government machinery. The campaign picked up in intensity, volume and scope through­out the coun­try while the administration tried to crush it ruth­lessly with lathi-charge, tear gas and at places even with firing that caused many casualties. Fre­quent gen­eral strikes paralyzed business and industry. There was vio­lence all around, with the protesters often indulging in arson and loot­ing. The fact was that those who had sown the wind of violence and illegalities were now reaping the whirlwind. The people who had been suppressed so long were now up in arms.
The PPP as a party was not visible and the situation was being han­dled by the government machinery only as a law and order issue. There were in­creased attacks on the PPP offices, its important leaders and their properties. In Lahore, Ratan Cinema and a hotel on McLeod Road, both belonging to PPP stalwarts, were burnt, along with some persons inside. Great fear was created among the PPP leaders and workers and many started leaving their resi­dences. The religious leaders introduced a very at­tractive slogan, Nizam-i-Mustafa (the administrative system of the Holy Prophet), and the movement, already con­sidered “a jihad against an op­pressive un-Islamic government,” took a new dimension.
The worst came on April 9, when the newly elected Punjab Pro­vincial Assembly was to meet in Lahore. The whole city appeared to be protesting. No government-owned public bus could move on the roads and any that did was burnt. Many processions were converging on the Assembly chambers. IGP Ch. Fazl-i-Haq was himself on the spot. The lower echelons became nervous because of his presence and went awry, committing serious errors of judgment. The police stopped the processions on various roads leading to the Assembly chambers, resulting in many deaths and inju­ries by police firing. There was arson and looting all day long.
The way a procession of women was handled near the Civil Lines po­lice station will always be a black mark on PPP. A day earlier, a large num­ber of prostitutes were recruited as temporary policewomen, ironi­cally by a police officer who is now a Haji and claims to be very relig­ious. They were pro­vided hurriedly sewn uniforms and were asked to remain ready in the police station. (They came to be known as “the Nath Force,” because nath, a circu­lar orna­ment worn by women at the nose end, has a special signifi­cance for prosti­tutes. When a virgin prostitute is deflowered after a kind of auction held at a special function by her guardians, the ceremony is called “removal of the nath.”) The Nath Force pounced upon the women in the procession, abused them in filthiest possible language, manhandled them, even tore their clothes. This incident, one of the most quoted, caused great revulsion among the peo­ple, whose social norms demand decent treatment to women even in the worst conditions.
Bhutto was in Lahore and monitored the operations himself. He must have realized the gravity of the situation after watching the mood of the peo­ple. The same evening he called on Maulana Maudoodi, head of Jama’at-i-Islami, at his home in Ichhra to seek his support in calming the masses but it was already too late. Moreover, the PNA was not Maudoodi’s Jama’at alone. It had eight other parties, with units to the lowest levels, which car­ried on the movement even after the major leaders were arrested.
The PNA had 31 demands, with resignation of Bhutto being at the top. Bhutto tried surreptitiously to win over Rafiq Bajwa, the Secretary General of PNA, who became a pariah the moment people came to know that he had se­cretly met the Prime Minister in Rawalpindi, having flown from Lahore under a pseudo­nym. The time for tricks was over.
Tikka Iqbal, an advisor to the Punjab Governor Sadiq Husain Qureshi, would visit me frequently to discuss the situation. I would tell him that the only way out was conciliation instead of confrontation, dialogue rather than danda. He would agree with me but say that Bhutto had been surrounded by hawks, who had made it an ego issue for him. Bhutto himself was not pre­pared to believe that “a group of pig­mies” could outdo him in politics. He consid­ered it beneath his position to have dialogue with people like Nas­rulla Khan, Mufti Mahmood, Asghar Khan, Wali Khan and others. Both sides were locked in a no-win situation. Bhutto wanted to crush PNA while PNA was determined to bring him down.

Danda, not dialogue. In that atmosphere of deathly deadlock, a friend, Mian Ahmad Ali, told me that he had met Nasrulla Khan and Hamza in the PNA of­fice and they were sure of their ultimate success.
“I don’t think they can succeed,” I observed. “In my assessment, Bhutto will fight to the end. In the process, the system may fail and democ­racy will be the casualty.”
“What is the way out, then?” he asked.
“I don’t know. But I think a face-saving way out has to be given to Bhutto. He too is trapped.”
“How can it be done?”
“PNA cannot negotiate a way out unless it is prepared to drop the de­mand for Bhutto’s resignation,” I replied. “Don’t expect him to commit po­litical suicide. If the demand for resignation is dropped, a compromise can become easy.”
I was expressing my opinion only on his asking but Mian Ahmad Ali went to Nasrulla Khan, who according to him, was quite amenable to the idea and had said that the demand for resignation was only a pressure tactic. Mian believed that sincere moves for a settlement were likely to be welcome by PNA. He asked me to intervene.
“How can I?” I observed. “I am not a politician.”
While we were talking, Tikka Iqbal dropped in and joined our discus­sion. The consensus was that negotiations should take place to find a way out and the demand for Bhutto’s resig­nation should be dropped. Tikka Iqbal pursued the idea with Bhutto.
The next day, April 23, Nasrulla Khan was also arrested, to the utter dis­appointment of Ahmad Ali, but the idea had been floated. In the first week of May, Muhammad Arshad Chaudhri, a senior leader of Nas­rulla’s Pakistan Demo­cratic Party, told me that negotiations between the PNA and Bhutto had been arranged through the mediation of Saudi Arabian Ambas­sador, Riaz al-Khatib, and were taking place in the Po­lice College, Sihala. But somehow the negotia­tions broke down after only a few days and all PNA leaders were sent to far-off jails.
The agitation was continued by the next tier of leadership and gained so much intensity that the army had to be called in several cities. Even the army was resisted and people came forward to lay down their lives. A few senior army officers refused to order firing on the protest­ing crowds during the lim­ited martial law imposed in three big cities. The martial law was, however, de­clared unconstitutional by Lahore and Sindh High Courts. The chiefs of army, navy and air force, in a very unusual move, expressed public support for the constitutional government by appearing on television but the people were not impressed and the agitation did not abate. Asghar Khan, a retired air force chief, wrote an open letter to the armed forces, urging them to do their consti­tutional duty by removing an illegitimate government that had violated the constitution blatantly.
On the other side, Bhutto went into the bazaars of Rawalpindi, waving a letter of the U.S. Secretary of State and describing the whole agitation as a part of the U.S.-sponsored grand design against him. It did not cut much ice.
I happened to meet the President, Ch. Fazal Elahi in May while I was in Rawalpindi for a meeting. Even a man of his insight thought that the situation could be controlled by sufficient military force, as was done in 1953 in La­hore during the anti-Ahmadiya agitation. “Sir, 1977 is not like 1953 and the issue has a much wider appeal,” I told him. He did not agree with me when I men­tioned the need for a meaningful dialogue.
Some desperate measures were being taken. Mustafa Khar re­joined the PPP and became a Special Assistant to the Prime Minister. Bhutto seemed to have reconciled with him to extricate himself from the Dulai camp mess. Rao Rashid was posted as the DIB in those very days in place of Sh. Muhammad Akram. Still wise counsel was not prevailing. Tikka Iqbal ap­peared dis­mayed. He told me, “Anybody suggesting a political way out is dubbed by the hawks in the chambers of power as disloyal, traitor and an enemy of Bhutto.”

Unscheduled entry in the act. While in Islamabad for an offi­cial meeting on treatment and rehabilitation of drug addicts, I went to see my friend Arshad Chaudhri at his home on June 3. A large number of IB and SB staff outside it created an eerie atmosphere. I did not know what was happening inside. I entered the house in my usual manner and found Pir Pagara, Nawabzada Nasrulla Khan, Mufti Mah­mood and Prof. Ghafoor in the drawing room. Prof. Ghafoor was giving an interview to a BBC corre­spon­dent. The leaders were as surprised to see me as I was to see them. I had most innocently and unwittingly walked on to the stage of the political drama while it was at its climax. I immediately realized the gravity of my mistake and left the house with the profoundest apologies. It occurred to me that they might suspect me for spying on them on behalf of the Government. That would make me look dishonourable in their eyes. But then I thought that they were intelligent people and would under­stand that such things were never done in that naive manner.
I had hardly reached my room in the Government Hostel when I got a call from Naseeb Butt, Personal Assistant to SP, Special Branch, Rawal­pindi, who had served with me also. He told me that my visit to the house of Arshad Chaudhri had been reported immediately. He knew that Arshad Chaudhri was an old friend of mine but was afraid that the visit would be definitely misunderstood. I was really worried because Waqar Ah­mad, Sec­retary Establishment, was very quick in taking summary action on the small­est lapse of a government officer.
I went to see DIB Rao Rashid the same evening and told him about my visit to the house of Arshad Chaudhri. I had served with him while he was IGP Punjab. He was delighted to know about the inci­dent and wanted me to col­lect information on what was going on in that house. He told me that serious negotiations between Bhutto and PNA had been ar­ranged and the leaders had been brought to Islamabad for that pur­pose. Rao Rashid told me that he sin­cerely wanted the negotiations to suc­ceed and I believed him because he was an honourable man.
I had really landed myself in a strange and a difficult situation. I ru­mi­nated over the matter and then went to Arshad Chaudhri and told him of my con­versation with Rao Rashid. I was in a moral conflict as I did not want to be­have dishonourably towards any party. He discussed the matter with Nasrulla Khan and later told me that I was welcome any time into his house because the PNA leaders had nothing to hide. In fact, they would pre­fer that truth should reach Bhutto through a channel of his own choice in­stead of conjectures that could vitiate the whole process.
I told Rao Rashid that I had discussed everything with Arshad Chaudhri. “He says even Rao Sahib himself is welcome to listen to our de­liberations,” I said. “Their only concern is that they may not be cheated. Their ulti­mate objective is to have free and fair elections to the National and Provincial Assemblies.”

Bhutto drags his feet. During the negotiations, Bhutto was assisted by Maulana Kausar Niazi and Hafiz Peerzada while Mufti Mahmood, the Presi­dent of PNA, was assisted by Nasrulla Khan and Prof. Ghafoor. Both teams worked hard over a long and difficult agenda. The PNA wanted the issues to be resolved in the shortest possible time so that it could go for re-elections while Bhutto wanted to drag the negotiations so that the agitation cooled off. Bhutto wanted to pro­long not only the negotiations but even the re-elections if ultimately agreed to. While the negotiations were going on, he left on a tour of several Muslim countries to give an im­pression that he was taking things easy and there was nothing seriously wrong at home. But the time for tricks had passed. Now truth had to triumph, as Arshad Chaudhri always said.
On the streets, another kind of confrontation was being built up. Mustafa Khar was belatedly organizing the PPP workers in the Punjab to come out and dis­play “the popularity of PPP and Bhutto.” It was a danger­ous game and cre­ated the specter of a civil war. The concern of the army became known both to Rao Rashid and PNA.
The parleys were resumed on the return of Bhutto but this round started in a more vitiated atmosphere. PNA leaders wanted to fix a deadline for an accord or they would step up the movement and be ready to go to jail again.
The negotiating team used to brief the PNA Council on the progress of talks and get briefing for the next session. In one such meeting, they de­cided that everyone should get his clothes washed on double rate (for ex­press deliv­ery) so that they did not go to jail while waiting for clean clothes from the laundry. Rao Rashid informed Bhutto about it and he in turn men­tioned it to the negotiating team to impress them with his ability to know all about them.

Zia brings darkness. Around June 26, I came to know that se­cret preparations were being made for the imposition of martial law. Rao Rashid was upset when I told him about it.
“You have brought bad news,” he commented.
“Bad but true,” I said. “Only four generals are not in favour of mar­tial law, according to my information. All others are for it because they think there will be civil war after the breakdown of negotiations. The PPP workers will come out against the PNA workers and there will be a blood bath. The generals also believe that there is a plan to kill all PNA leaders.”
“Somebody is painting a wrong picture to prejudice the generals,” he said.
“May be but Bhutto Sahib should clinch the issue with maximum speed instead of moving at a snail’s pace. I am certain about the need for urgency. If the negotiations are finalized in time, the danger to de­mocracy will be over.” He agreed with me.
“What will be the likely outcome in case of re-elections?” he asked.
“PPP is likely to get a comfortable majority at least in the Pun­jab.” I gave him my assessment.
The next day Arshad Chaudhri came to know independently that martial law was imminent. “Something should be done to stop it,” he sug­gested.
“The only thing that can do it is the immediate finalization of the ac­cord,” I told him.
I again went to Rao Rashid to tell him what Arshad Chaudhri had learnt through his own independent source.
“Bhutto does not believe it,” Rao Rashid told me. “He thinks it is a PNA pressure tactic.”
“Even then there is no harm in finalizing the matter immediately,” I said.
I suggested that the parleys might be held continuously and no­body should be allowed to get up until an accord was reached. The PNA and PPP teams did hold the parleys the whole night on June 28 and reached an ac­cord.
“They followed your advice literally,” Rao Rashid told me the next day. “Your name will go down in history.”
I smiled and thanked him. “I’ll be very happy even if I am men­tioned in a footnote.”
The next day I met Mustafa Khar in the Prime Minister House and told him that martial law would come if the accord was not made public im­medi­ately. He did not believe me.
“If martial law was to be imposed, the best time was 9th April,” he said. “There is no chance of martial law now. Earlier the PPP workers were de­moralized. Now they have somebody to look up to.” His tone showed great confidence.
“Well, sir, I have given you the information,” I said. “You can still avert it.” I passed on the information to Maj. Gen. Imtiaz, Military Secretary to Prime Minister, and also to Ch. Anwar Aziz, my friend and a very shrewd politician, but both did not like to believe it.
After an agreement had been reached on June 28, the PNA team had to face great opposition in their Council. Air Marshal Asghar Khan was talking tough. The accord provided for fresh elections in three months, on October 18 to be exact, under the supervision of a supreme council, com­posed of equal number of members from the Government and the opposi­tion. Air Marshall demanded that the accord should become a part of the Consti­tution and be enforceable through the Supreme Court. He took Nas­rulla Khan aside and told him that he would get the new elections from the army within three months but Bhutto could not be relied upon to be fair during re-elections and might even resile from his commitment after the agi­tation cooled off. On the insistence of Air Marshal, the venue for further PNA Council meetings was shifted to the house of Col. Tasaddaq, of Tehrik-i-Istiqlal, instead of the home of Arshad Chaudhri. I smelled a rat.
I told Rao Rashid about the thinking of Air Marshal Asghar Khan. Bhutto was pleased that there were serious differences within the PNA. He was trying to catch on a straw.
“Bhutto is satisfied that the army will not interfere,” he told me. “It has been checked for him by Gen. Tikka Khan. It is difficult to press the point any further.” Rao was showing helplessness.
The PNA, under pressure from Asghar Khan, continued to insist that the accord should be a part of the constitution while Bhutto believed that it would make the constitu­tion a joke. He was happy that PNA leaders were fighting among them­selves. The boat seemed to be capsizing within sight of the coast. Those who had laid down their lives to restore the sanctity of the ballot box had actually paved way for another martial law because the self­ish­ness and short-sightedness of a few leaders on both sides were leading the country there.
I was with Sahibzada Farooq Ali, the Speaker of the National As­sembly, in the afternoon of July 4 when Arshad Chaudhri came rushing with the informa­tion that martial law would be imposed that night. What could be done? It was too late but there was a fighting chance. He rushed to the home of Col. Tasaddaq where a press conference was to be addressed by all PNA leaders to dispel an impression of dissension. Arshad Chaudhri called Nawabzada outside and informed him of the latest development. Arshad re­quested him to address the confer­ence himself to make the accord public immediately, even if others did not agree. Nasrulla Khan did that but it was too late. His an­nouncement that ac­cord had been reached did not appear in the next morn­ing’s newspapers.
All efforts to save the democratic system ultimately failed. The army moved in during the night and arrested all major leaders of both sides. The martial law was imposed on the night of July 5. Gen. Mu­hammad Zia-ul-Haq, Chief of Army Staff, became the Chief Martial Law Administrator. Zia, which literally means “light,” brought another dawn of darkness and another—much longer—night of the generals.

Raj kare-ga Khalsa. The mood of the people changed overnight. Most of those who had been opposing Bhutto and PPP suddenly turned their ire against the martial law as the pain of the earlier regimes had not yet been for­gotten. Gen. Zia, while intending the very opposite, had given a new political life to the dying PPP as there was a sudden sentimental surge in fa­vour of Bhutto and his party. Gen. Zia was shocked on the reaction of the people, as Maj. Gen. Abdur Rahman told me. He was looking into the womaniz­ing epi­sodes of Rao Rashid. “Some women of taste did like Rao Rashid for his being handsome and manly,” I told Gen. Rahman. “Why should CMLA bother about that? He had better worry about the public mood.”
I also told A.R. Shefta, a close friend of Gen. Zia, about the pub­lic re­jec­tion of martial law. Shefta later told me that the General had decided to revive democracy and hold elections shortly but was worried about the out­come.
“Tell him not to worry,” I assured him. “PNA will secure a ma­jor­ity.”
“But the General’s worry is that PNA will fall apart and Bhutto would be back in power.”
“Politically strong Bhutto will keep the PNA united,” I said. “The Gen­eral should not worry on that score.”
“Why don’t they merge into one party?” Shefta expressed the Gen­eral’s wish.
“That is difficult as every party has its background, history and pro­gramme,” I explained. “They were united as an alliance only on a minimum programme. You should not expect PNA to become a single party. They will, however, remain united against Bhutto. The regime should go ahead with the elections on October 18 as already an­nounced.”
“No elections in that case. No question of it.” He spoke with an air of finality, sitting in his suite in the Lahore Inter-Continental Hotel. “Why should the General get shoe-beating from Bhutto for the sake of these rag tag politi­cians and mullas if they cannot get together.” He seemed to be fully aware of the General’s thinking.
I was silent and looked out of the window. It was August 8. A multi­tude of poor people was walking to the airport to receive Bhutto, who was coming to Lahore for the first time after his dismissal. Shefta also watched them. The lines went on, unbroken.
“I don’t agree with your assessment, Sardar Sahib,” Shefta broke the si­lence. “Bhutto will win and destroy my friend Zia.” He was still looking at the unending stream of people on the Mall outside. I did not say any­thing. Fear is very difficult to shake off, especially for the peo­ple who walk in the corridors of power.
During our evening walk, I told A/Hameed about my conversation with Shefta.
“There will be no elections on October 18,” he said. “PPP and PNA will have to join hands if they want to dislodge the General.”
I could not believe my ears. In fact, I became annoyed with him. “The General has given a public commitment,” I protested. “How could he go back on that? It would be the worst example of public bad faith.”
A/Hameed said, “That is what will happen. You will see that raj kare-ga Khalsa, baqi rahe na ko. Only the Generals will rule.”
They started the game very soon. Begum Nasim Wali Khan had been one of the vociferous supporters of martial law to throw out Bhutto rather than have an agreement with him. So, one of the earliest steps of the new regime was to release Wali Khan and other NAP leaders. As a quid pro quo, Wali Khan demanded accountability of the Bhutto govern­ment before elec­tions were held, under the slogan of Pehle ihte­sab, phir intekhab (first accountabil­ity, then elections). His demand was supported also by some other PNA lead­ers, who were in favour of martial law. This demand was later used as one of the main justifica­tions to postpone elections.
While in Makkah on his umra visit, Gen. Zia announced his “determined resolve” to hold elections on schedule. And while in Teh­ran on his way back, he observed that the politicians “will follow me on my whis­tle.” The statement was resented but various politicians did follow him.
The elections were postponed because Bhutto had re-emerged as the most popular personality in the backdrop of martial law while in a demo­cratic process and struggle he had lost his popular appeal. The peo­ple re­jected him as a high-handed ruler but preferred even his tough tactics over martial law.
A/Hameed felt that Bhutto without power would grow in public es­teem. The image of a persecuting and bullying Bhutto would be re­placed by that of a suffering and struggling leader. Martial law would revive him as a hero who reconstructed the country after a humiliating defeat, got back the occu­pied territories, brought back the POWs and hosted the first and the only Is­lamic Summit in which every single member was represented. Now that he had lost his teeth that he used to bite indiscriminately, his sins of maladminis­tration and high-hand­edness would be forgotten and for­given.

18

Was Bhutto really guilty?
Federal Security Force (FSF) was perceived by many to be a parallel or­ganization to the army. It also gained a reputation of being Bhutto’s gang of goons for dirty works. Therefore, soon after the imposition of martial law, an elaborate inquiry into its affairs was initiated. Wajahat Latif, Direc­tor, FIA, Lahore, my friend and batch mate, was given the assignment for the Lahore region and I was directed to assist him.
During the inquiry, ASI Muhammad Arshad of FSF appeared before Ch. Abdul Khaliq, Deputy Director, FIA, Lahore. He promised to tell eve­rything truthfully if he was not tortured. He narrated many illegal acts of the FSF. He disclosed that he was a member of a special cell in the FSF head­quarters, which had the most trusted officers for secret and sensitive mis­sions. The cell was headed by SP Mian Muhammad Abbas and its members had no contact with anybody above him.
Then he threw a bombshell. He said he was one of the FSF men who had fired on the car in which MNA Ahmad Raza Kasuri, his father, Nawab Muhammad Ahmad Khan, and other family members were traveling. Mu­hammad Ah­mad was killed while the others were injured. Arshad gave de­tails of the planning and execution of the ghastly mission.
I was glancing through a copy of Time magazine in Wajahat’s office when he told me about Arshad’s startling revelations. I was stunned and was all ears while he gave me the details. The mystery of the most widely known murder case of the country at that time had been solved. Further details could now be collected by interrogating the accomplices.
Wajahat asked me what he should do next as the matter was very ex­plosive. I advised him to inform immediately his Director General, M.S. Anwar, about the de­tails divulged by ASI Arshad and then seek his instruc­tions. (The murder case was not yet under investigation with the FIA.) Wa­ja­hat rushed to Islamabad. On his return the next day, he told me that the DG had talked to Gen. Zia, who directed that the investigation of the case should be taken up by the FIA. The case had been registered by the lo­cal police in 1974 and Bhutto had been nominated in the First Information Re­port as the main accused on the insistence of the complainant, Ahmad Raza Khan.
As FIA Lahore became fully occupied with the investigation of the murder case, the inquiry into other affairs of FSF went into the background and I returned to my normal duties in the Narcotics Control Board. I did not come to know how much Bhutto was directly involved as I was not associ­ated with further investigations. I shall, therefore, confine myself only to those matters that were known to me personally or came to my knowledge through friends.

How “loyal” officers behave. Bhutto was arrested in the murder case after preliminary investigations but was released on bail by Justice Samdani of the La­hore High Court. He was arrested again, this time under martial law regulations to prevent his release again. Masood Mahmood, Di­rector General of the Federal Security Force, turned approver, a witness who pro­vided in­criminating evi­dence against accomplices while he himself was exempted from prosecution. Saeed Ahmad Khan, Chief Security Officer to Bhutto, Sardar Abdul Wakil Khan, DIG Lahore, and Asghar Khan, SSP La­hore, were among the star prosecution witnesses. They all had been among the most trusted police offi­cers of Bhutto and would commit criminal and ille­gal acts to convince him of their “devotion and loyalty” and to “stabilize and strengthen” his government. Now they were providing evidence to con­vict him for murder. Such is the character of officers whom the rulers na­ively consider as “trustworthy and reliable.”
I recalled my submission as SSP Rawalpindi to Bhutto that Saeed Ah­mad Khan, who egged on for something illegal in one of the matters, might be in a witness box against him some day. Bhutto did not seem to be giving much weight to my words. But seeing Saeed Ahmad depose against Bhutto, I was myself struck by my prophetic utterance. I attended the High Court proceedings daily during the trial till the “gang of four police officers” had deposed. I thought Bhutto might notice me and recollect what I had said al­most unwittingly five years ago but he was too engrossed in watching the blatant volte face of the wicked men. He must be regretting why he had trusted them. Unfortunately, such regrets come only after losing power but by then it is too late.
Masood Mahmood and Saeed Ahmad came up with a very vague, complicated and garbled statement about Bhutto’s role in the case. They would not commit themselves one way or the other. The prosecution story was quite clear as far as the part of FSF men involved in the case was con­cerned but they had obviously no personal motives. Bhutto could be pre­sumed to have the motive on political grounds. What about Masood Mah­mood? Did he have a motive of his own on personal grounds? When I asked Malik Waris, who had initially investigated the murder soon after it took place, he said no definite evidence or indication was available as far as he knew.
Did Masood Mahmood have a career motive to please Bhutto by prov­ing himself efficient and effective in his own devious manner? There are al­ways a large number of civil and police officers whose expertise is to prac­tice and prescribe crookedness to prove their own usefulness. It may or may not be in the best interest of the boss, but it certainly serves their own pur­pose by creating an atmosphere where they appear indispensable. Such people do not like the boss to see beyond them and try to possess him like a jealous mis­tress. They insulate him and then exploit his dependence on them. I could not draw any definite inferences as many links were missing.
Taking a strange position, Masood Mahmood claimed that he was un­der a constant fear of Waqar Ahmad, the Establishment Secretary. What was he trying to prove? Was he afraid that his career might be affected? If so, then he would do anything for success in his career, even commit a sur­repti­tious murder, which would give a feeling to Bhutto that Masood had removed a big nuisance. (Ahmad Raza Kasuri was in fact creating prob­lems for Bhutto despite being in his own party and was the real target but luckily es­caped in the assassination attempt.) I was looking for an indica­tion in his or Saeed Ahmad’s statement that Bhutto had given clear orders for the assassi­nation of Ahmad Raza but both were vague. Did fear drive Masood Mah­mood neurotic so that he had imagined things or was he under more fear af­ter the fall of Bhutto? Anybody with such intense pathological fear of Waqar Ahmad would be under a worse degree of fear from the mar­tial law regime that had definitely more arbitrary authority than the most powerful Estab­lishment Sec­retary.
To me Masood was always a pathological case. I got an indication during a meeting with him at a function in the Police Club, Lahore. About a month and a half earlier, he had got my transfer to FSF approved by Bhutto but I was posted to Pakistan Narcotics Control Board instead. He did not know that I had got the change through President Fazal Elahi. Be­ing ex­tremely nice and polite, he took me aside and asked, “How did you get off the hook? Bhutto had personally approved your posting in FSF.” I quickly read what was going on in his mind and decided to have the better of him by teasing him.
“Sir, my posting to PNCB was approved by the same person who had earlier approved my posting to FSF,” I said with a lot of deliberate humility.
He became quite deferential towards me and asked, “Do you know Bhutto Sahib personally or you approached him through somebody?”
“Sir, I know him very well,” I said with a lot of confidence. “I have been SSP Rawalpindi and then SSP Lahore.”
Masood Mahmood was quite impressed and started cajoling a junior officer like me in the style of a charming salesman. To my total but pleasant surprise, he said, “Always say nice things about me whenever you meet Mr Bhutto. You are like a younger brother to me.” He was a true careerist. I was never close to Bhutto and never met him even in a function but Masood would go to any limits in removing possible hurdles in his career.
While talking to Tikka Iqbal outside the court room, I did loud think­ing that Masood Mahmood needed a medical check-up on the intensity of his re­actions on fear and fearful situations. When I told Iqbal about the Po­lice Club incident, he thought seriously about it and suddenly said in Pun­jabi, “Es paghal ne marva ditta ey!” (This mad man has caused serious trou­ble.)
“Whom?” I asked. “Bhutto or Saeed Ahmad Khan?”
“Everybody!” he exclaimed.
Iqbal was right. Everybody—the court, the army, Bhutto, PNA, PPP and even democracy—was locked in a vicious exercise only because some wicked minds had led Bhutto on a course of destruction by providing ad­min­istrative props that appeared attractive in the beginning. Nobody real­ized that the most effective and successful administration was based on truth, not tricks. Bhutto, once trapped, could not come out of the web of wickedness. It was no longer possible to separate him from the misdeeds of his “devoted and loyal” associates.

Rushing through. Bhutto, after getting his bail from Lahore High Court, was rearrested and put up for trial in the murder case before the Ses­sions Judge, Lahore. The case was then transferred to the High Court for trial in its original jurisdiction by the full bench, headed by the dominant and curt Maulvi Mushtaq Husain, the Chief Justice. The defence objected as they lost one chance of appeal but its petition was rejected. (The judgment of the Sessions Court could be appealed first in the High Court and then in the Sup­reme Court.) The case was taken up for day-to-day trial. The speed was also objected to but in vain. The court did not appear to be accommo­dating the defence even on small issues.
Gen. Zia was either indiscreet or deliberately leaked that Bhutto would be punished under martial law even if he was acquitted by the High Court. Bhutto was a politician of international reputation and the case also had more political overtones than personal. After some time, Bhutto boy­cotted the trial and it became purely political.
Mehr Ali Anwar, a former member of Sindh Assembly from Ghotki and an old friend, met me in Lahore in the trial days.
“Sindh is on fire because of Bhutto trial,” he observed.
“Why?” I asked.
“Sindhis don’t believe the prosecution story,” he explained. “They think Punjabis are crushing a Sindhi. It has become an ethnic issue. Saeen, you try him in Lahore before Punjabi judges and still think it will not be­come an ethnic issue?”
“The murder took place in Lahore and the trial had to be in Lahore,” I explained.
“I understand this but nobody in Sindh will buy these legal niceties. Sindh High Court could have tried him.” He expressed the Sindhi reaction in a straightforward manner.
I found difficulty in sleeping that night. Bilqis, my wife, asked me why I was disturbed. I told her what Ali Anwar had told me.
The simple soul said most innocently, “Why are you worried? You were never fond of Bhutto.”
“It is not a question of Bhutto’s life. It is the likely consequences that cause me anxiety. Pakistan is falling apart on regional and ethnic lines be­cause of this trial.” I tried to explain but she was not much convinced.
“Do you think a murderer should be let off for such stupid reasons?” she asked. “Nothing will happen to Pakistan. Now don’t spoil you health and go to sleep.”
“I hope nothing happens to the country,” I observed more to myself than her.
“You have gone crazy,” she said.
“My dear, Pakistan is the name of the feelings and thoughts of Pakis­tanis, not just the name of a territory. Hearts break first, souls go out and the living body is then reduced to dust. Territory falls off like a dried leaf.” I was addressing myself more than Bilqis and felt extreme pain in my body, especially my backbone.
I cursed Bhutto for allowing people like Masood Mahmood to be around him. Such men become law unto themselves, driving the people in­exorably to disorder. Then they say that the people are mad and the danda (stick) should be used to bring them to their senses. Who creates the un­bearable conditions and provokes them into madness? It was the same Mas­ood Mah­mood, who ordered firing that killed many students demonstrating on the language issue in Dhaka in February 1952. It was one of the first major blun­ders that led 20 years later to the separation of East Pakistan. I shuddered to think what would happen further because of his recent mis­deeds. Perhaps my wife was right and I had really gone crazy.
Next day I rushed to the Services Hospital. Dr Inayat, the Medical Su­perintendent, carried out a thorough check-up and di­ag­nosed diabetes.
“Do you have it in the family?” he asked me.
“No, my parents or even grandparents on both sides never had it,” I told him.
He diagnosed that my diabetes was due to extreme mental anxiety. He was right. The agonies and bitter memories of the refugee camps in 1947 would shake me almost physically. The specter of Bangladesh would haunt me. Now the future of the country was causing me extreme worry. Since then I have been suffering the disease.
The country was in ferment because of the Bhutto trial. To strengthen Gen. Zia in dealing with the case, the PNA was persuaded to join his gov­ernment. (My friend, Muhammad Arshad Chaudhri, became the Minister for Science and Technology.) Bhutto’s party and his fans thought he was too great to be convicted nor was there enough evidence to do it. But the court, after hear­ing in his absence due to his boycott, convicted him and the others accused in the case. The verdict came as a shock to most people but there was little visible reac­tion as there was still hope. (An appeal was to go be­fore the Supreme Court.) Begum Nusrat Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto and most of the PPP leaders and workers were detained to avoid any law and or­der situa­tion. Many of the workers were given lashes in the jails to create fear in the hearts of oth­ers. The situation was tense but peaceful.

Khar flies away. I met Mustafa Khar on the Eid day after the imposi­tion of Martial Law. He looked quite impressed by my forecast about the martial law and asked for my assessment of the future. I did not like to ven­ture any assessment in detail but told him that martial law was likely to con­tinue till Bhutto was popu­lar and angry and the conditions were not condu­cive to indemnifying the acts under martial law. I told Khar that the imme­diate cause of martial law was he him­self as it was widely believed that he would have caused a civil war.
“I did not do anything like that,” he protested.
“Yes, that’s true but this was the perception in the military quarters.” Then I gave him my opinion in the light of my reading of the situation. “After Bhutto, you are No. 2 in PPP. So, they will not spare you.”
“There is nothing against me,” he said most emphatically. “I have not done anything for which they can lay their hands on me.”
“They will find many things against you, including the Liaquat Bagh firing case,” I said smilingly.
I read in the newspapers after a few days that Khar had left for Lon­don after meeting some generals. He re­turned in 1986, after the lifting of martial law, and was arrested at the airport. He re­mained in jail till the death of Gen. Zia in 1988. After his release from Adyala jail, near Rawal­pindi, he came to the residence of Haji Akram, where I was also present. It was after 11 years that we had met again. The first thing he said was, “Please tell me when the martial law will be imposed next. This time I shall believe you forthwith.”
“I hope that ugly moment does not come again,” I replied. “Every one of us should work for the stability of democracy and the country. I hope the politicians do show the necessary circumspection. This may be the last chance.” I said this with deep feelings and Haji Akram joined me in that statement.

Keeping PPP in the mainstream. Ch. Asghar Ali, advocate, my class fel­low and friend, successfully defended Begum Bhutto and she was re­leased from detention by orders of the Lahore High Court. He was very proud of having won the case. He believed that he could have even won the murder case against Bhutto with his brilliant advocacy. Not only that. He even believed that he would have successfully won the constitutional petition of Begum Nusrat Bhutto, challenging the imposition of martial law. I felt that he was arrogat­ing too much to himself and placing too much faith in the normal process of law. Maybe because he always had a very sentimental ap­proach in life and was deeply attached to the Bhutto family.
“The constitutional deviation has been justified and condoned by the highest judicial body in view of the extraordinary security situation and eve­ry­thing has to move in the light of that verdict,” I observed during our dis­cussion. “You are too late to do anything in this respect.”
“Things will certainly go very bad,” he agreed. “The basic law of the country has been trampled upon. We are all party to that dastardly crimi­nal­ity. A.K. Brohi is the greatest culprit for defending martial law in the Su­preme Court. Nothing will work now. The future is dark.” He burst into tears and sobbed. I could see the intensity of his emotions. I tried to console him but he was very disturbed. So I engaged him in a serious and rather shocking dis­cussion.
“Are you worried about the fate of Bhutto?” I asked him.
“Yes, very much,” he replied. “They will hang him and that will mean the end of Pakistan. Sindh will secede. Punjab will be landlocked and at the mercy of the Sikhs across the border. Frontier and Balochistan will go with Afghanistan. Khair Bakhsh Mari and Ajmal Khattak, etc., are already there. Zia is foolishly playing in the hands of India. Pakistan is falling apart.” He again cried.
“You are imagining too much,” I told him. “He may not be hanged at all.”
“No, no, they will hang him,” he again asserted. “It is an American conspi­racy to destroy Pakistan.”
“Bhutto is not Pakistan,” I said. “You are rating him too high.”
“He is the only leader after the Quaid-i-Azam who could inspire and integrate the Muslim millat,” Asghar said. “He put the shattered pieces to­gether, got back the occupied territory and POWs, gave an agreed constitu­tion and held the Islamic Summit right here in Lahore. He is a great national statesman. After him will be the deluge.” Now he was firm and cool, his emo­tionalism having gone.
“Yes, no doubt, he is brilliant,” I agreed. Then, trying to shake him up, I said, “National integration suited him in post-surrender scenario so he could be the undisputed ruler and the leader of the present Pakistan without the Eastern wing.”
“You are not being fair to Bhutto,” he protested. “In fact, you are ab­so­lutely mean and are ignoring facts. He resolved for a determined 1000-year war against India. Army was bogged down in East Pakistan and col­lapsed. What could he do? He saved the remaining Pakistan when Indira Gandhi was forecasting ‘another happy news’ in the near future. India and Russia might have sepa­rated East Pakistan but their machinations to divide Pakis­tanis into Pathans, Balochis, Sindhis and Punjabis was successfully thwarted by Bhutto. The language riots in Sindh in 1972 was a mischief caused di­rectly by Russia. Bhutto must be saved, please.” He was now almost beg­ging.
“Well, I am nobody,” I said. “We can only pray. But there is a lot of weight in what you say. Deprived of the hope for power, Bhutto did play into the manipulative hands of Yahya Khan after 1970 elections and did be­come a potent factor in disintegration. However, the beauty of democracy is that participation in power and influence keeps communities and societies united in spite of variance in culture and language. I accept Bhutto as a po­tent integrating force as you put it. Let him remain a symbol of national unity. The bones of dead Bhutto will become a fertilizer for a united and strong country. I wish he had not faltered at that time. But we must not do it now. You are close to Begum Bhutto. She is of Iranian origin and be­longs to no ethnic group. She and PPP should become the symbol of na­tional unity even if he is hanged. Let her or anybody else in PPP not think on ethnic and regional lines and Pakistan will be safe. Please plead this with her again and again.” I put this across to him with emphasis and deep emo­tions.
He appeared convinced. Then he said, “Can’t you convey some good sense to the Generals also? You are a very senior and sensible officer.”
“I shall try but I have few connections of the right kind,” I replied. “I am not very optimistic about our Generals as most of them are devoid of any sense of history. They are not statesmen. They are only agents and symbols of a dreadful force and suppression and oppression are the only methods they know. They can at the most maintain the stinking status quo. But let us try to save whatever we can. I shall try to keep Begum Bhutto and PPP on the national track in spite of all the odds.” He agreed with my line of ar­gument.
Then he asked me, “Any other advice to save the situation from fur­ther deterioration and save Bhutto’s life?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “But may be Begum Sahiba might like to mend fences with the Americans.”
Asghar Ali had many meetings with Begum Bhutto and, as he told me, she stood for the national politics at all costs, even if the Generals hanged her husband. She would not stand for anything regional or ethnic. As­ghar dis­cussed these concepts with Begum Sahiba in the presence of Bena­zir, who, according to him, appeared to be more sharp and understand­ing.
I mentioned the apprehensions of Asghar Ali to Arshad Chaudhri, now one of Zia’s ministers, and requested him to try to save Bhutto in view of the seri­ous implications. He should also try to get the death sentence re­duced to life imprisonment if it was upheld by the Supreme Court. He was convinced of the need to work on this line. He also met Asghar and dis­cussed the mo­dali­ties with him. Arshad even promised to see Begum Bhutto secretly but the meeting could not take place for unavoidable rea­sons.
I also told Arshad Chaudhri that in my assessment PNA’s role in the govern­ment would be no more required after Bhutto was hanged. The pur­pose of in­volv­ing the PNA in government was only to get Bhutto’s hanging en­dorsed by the PNA supporters. After that, PNA would be discarded like a used condom. He was not much persuaded by my argument but that is what hap­pened ulti­mately.
I took up another point. “General Zia has started enjoying power. Now PPP and PNA will have to join hands to get rid of him.”
“That is impossible,” he said emphatically. “PPP and PNA will never get together.”
I made the same observation to Nawabzada Nasrulla Khan at the resi­dence of Arshad Chaudhri. He was annoyed. He did not like the inference that PNA leaders were being used and befooled by the General.
While the hearing of Bhutto’s appeal continued before the Supreme Court, it was rumoured that the court was divided. As a result, it was widely assumed that the death sentence would be reduced to life imprison­ment. Bhutto argued his case personally also and gave it a larger political and geo-politi­cal perspective. An attempt was made to publish his state­ment in the form of a book without the approval of the court and even before its submis­sion. The copies of the book were con­fiscated while still under print in La­hore. It later came out in India under the title, “If I am assassinated...” Some copies were smuggled in and were photocopied and distributed widely.
The Supreme Court, after a prolonged hearing, upheld the verdict of the Lahore High Court in a 5-4 judgment. Most people hoped that Gen. Zia, who had by now become the President after the resignation of Ch. Fazal Elahi, would reduce it to life imprisonment. But those who were close to the Gene­ral were certain that he was going to finish Bhutto physically. Arshad Chaudhri went to Saudi Arabia for umra where he had a dream in Makkah that Bhutto had been hanged and he had resigned from the cabinet in pro­test. When he narrated the dream, I said, “I hope you announce your resig­nation now so that Bhutto is not hanged. You will save the country from a trauma.” In the event, he did not do that although I had given him my as­sessment that PNA ministers would be no more required if Bhutto was hanged.
A review petition was filed before the Supreme Court by Bhutto but that was also rejected after a brief hearing. Gen. Sagheer, Chairman of the Fede­ral Inspection Commission, with whom I had worked for some time in ad­dition to my job at the Pakistan Narcotics Control Board, discussed the im­plications of Bhutto case with me for many days and I always gave my view that hang­ing would be resented widely and intensely, particularly in Sindh, and would cause irreparable loss to national integrity. He told me that he had tried his best for clemency but Zia was adamant. He was afraid of reprisals if Bhutto was not hanged. Fear seemed to be prevail­ing on both sides.
“Why should the chief of army have any fears?” I asked. “Nobody can touch the army chief, at least in our country.”
“Bhutto is being emotional,” said Gen. Sagheer. “He should have kept quiet instead of threatening the regime.” After a pause, he spoke again, “He is going to be hanged anyhow. You are an experienced police officer. Tell me, what can be done to minimize the public reaction and riots?”
“The best is not to hang him,” I replied. “Try once again, please. In the other case, the announcement of a date for general elections will satisfy most people and will engage the attention of the activists. But that is being just clever to defuse the situation. The best would be to save his neck, keep him in jail and hold the elections. Then the matters will not go to the ex­treme.” I gave my advice according to my perception in the given circum­stances.
He said, “It clicks. Thank you.” Then he left for the CMLA Head­quar­ters. Once again he did not succeed in getting clemency for Bhutto but the alternative was accepted. The elections were announced before the hanging took place.

One rope, two necks. The petitions for clemency were pouring in from heads of state to the ordinary people, from the West to the Muslim World. Tunku Abdur Rahman, the founder of Malaysia and its former Prime Minis­ter, traveled all the way to Islamabad to restrain Zia. Ch. Fazal Elahi wrote a very moving personal letter. He also tried to see Zia but the General avoided him.
Zia was in mortal terror of Bhutto. He was certain that Bhutto would not let him live if he was saved from the gallows. (After all, a jail sentence or exile could not be for ever.) He said it all in his memorable words, “There is one rope and two necks. It will be either his neck or my neck.” It was un­derstandable in view of what Bhutto had been doing. Despite having read so much history, the condemned former Prime Minister had not learnt the right lessons.
Riaz al-Khateeb, the Saudi Ambassador, met Arshad Chaudhri in my pres­ence and told him, “I have placed myself in a very awkward position. I had informed His Majesty King Khalid that Zia-ul-Haq will not reject his ap­peal for mercy as the general had personally assured me of acceptance. His Maj­esty then made his appeal publicly. But now it appears that Gen. Zia is go­ing to hang Bhutto.” The ambassador now sought the advice of Arshad Chaudhri, his per­sonal friend, whether he should approach King Khalid again to speak to Zia if there was any possibility of his agreeing this time.
“There is absolutely no possibility,” Arshad Chaudhri told him. “You should not embarrass your position further.”
I requested Arshad Chaudhri in Punjabi (so that the ambassador might not understand) to let him approach King Khalid once again with the faint hope that it might work this time but he didn’t agree to it.
“Why did you not ask the ambassador to try again?” I asked Arshad Chaudhri after the ambassador had left.
He replied, “I know for certain that Zia is not going to spare Bhutto at any cost. So why should I betray Riaz al-Khatib’s trust in me and embarrass him unnecessarily.”
I lost my hope at that moment to save the country from a trauma and ominous portends of the consequent disaster. However, I did make some desperate attempts to change the situation.

“Bhutto’s death will finish PPP.” I went to Nawabzada Nasrulla Khan and discussed the consequences of Bhutto’s hanging. He felt strongly that Bhutto should not be hanged. I suggested that he should make a public appeal. That would encourage many others to come round the idea and cre­ate an atmosphere that might compel Zia to reconsider his decision. But he was not prepared for a public statement as it would create a rift in the PNA. He, how­ever, intended to see Zia and plead mercy for Bhutto.
On March 26, I met Maulana Maudoodi and discussed the conse­quences of the hanging. He believed that Bhutto was a wicked person and should meet his end for his sins.
“I am not suggesting that he is a good person,” I pleaded. “He is evil, no doubt. But the people will become emotionally charged and sway in fa­vour of dead Bhutto. He is a secularist while Zia is an Islamist. When peo­ple sway towards him and against Zia, Islam will come in a bad light. You heard about very good Muslims raising slogans of “Islam Murdabad” (Hell with Islam) in Dhaka because of Yahya’s tyranny. It is not for Bhutto but for Is­lamic feelings that I feel concerned. Please, speak to the General and try to save Bhutto’s life. Let him languish in jail and fade out without dam­aging the nation and its Islamic values.”
Maulana Sahib was not convinced. “Bhutto is PPP. With his death, PPP will be finished. Let the evil die. PPP without Bhutto is zero. Don’t worry, no damage to Islam will come.” I repeated my argument three times but to no avail. The last thing he said was, “There is a lot of weight in what you say but it is better that he meets his end. Living Bhutto will be more dangerous.” He looked very tired and weak. I begged his leave and left his Ichhra residence, desolate and disturbed. I knew nothing more could be done now.
“Why are you running about to save Bhutto from the gallows?” Mian Ahmad Ali asked me when he met me later. “It is obviously a political ac­tivity. You are a public servant. Isn’t it against the service rules?”
“I am a servant of Pakistan, not of the people in power,” I replied. “The service rules are a legacy of the British colonial rule and become ir­relevant when the future of the country is at stake. I am trying to avert a great tragedy and cannot bother about the niceties of the rules.”

Cringing crookedness and stubborn strategy. The General termed the appeals of the world leaders as “an act of trade unionism by politicians to save another politician, who is guilty of murder.”
At home, he wanted the participation of the politicians in the decision to hang Bhutto in order to create a permanent divide among them. They walked into his trap and the cabinet approved his decision. Although mercy was the personal prerogative of the President, the petition by some relatives, made against Bhutto’s own wishes, was rejected in the cabinet. Even Ar­shad Chaudhri did not differ in spite of his dream at Makkah.
The general elections were announced by Zia-ul-Haq on March 23, 1979, the Pakistan Day, for October 18 the same year. The way to the gal­lows was now clear for Bhutto. The announcement would not only help de­fuse the hostile reaction on the hanging but would also pave the way to get rid of the PNA.
“Don’t you think it is a perfect move?” Gen. Ghulam Hasan asked me during a visit to the Federal Inspection Commission.
“Yes, it is,” I replied. “After all, you are trained tacticians and strate­gists and your skills are used deftly against our own people.”
“You civil servants are trained crooks,” he retorted. “What is the dif­fer­ence?”
“No difference, sir. Cringing crookedness and stubborn strategy make a good cocktail.” We laughed off a very serious matter.
I came to Lahore, very disappointed. I told Asghar Ali that Bhutto was going to be hanged and urged him to go to Sihala, where Begum Bhutto and Benazir were confined, to try to keep them in the mainstream politics. He was very sad and suffered an asthmatic attack there and then. Being her ad­vocate, he was allowed to see Begum Bhutto but this time he was able to meet her much after the hanging. He told me that Bhutto ladies were still determined to play national rather than negative politics.
Before the hanging, there were cases of self-immolation as a protest but it did not cut much ice with Gen. Zia. Haji Habib-ur-Rahman, who was then IGP Punjab, issued instructions to the police to try to save those who wanted to burn themselves. The General did not like these instructions and wanted them to be withdrawn. Haji Sahib held his ground because he was of the view that, under the law, it was a basic duty of a police officer to inter­vene whenever there was a threat to human life. The General, on the other hand, was of the view that if some of the self-immolators died, the others would be discouraged. Haji Sahib was transferred soon afterwards.

The end or rebirth? Arshad Chaudhri rang me up very early in the morning on April 4, the fateful day, and said, “The man has been hanged.” There was a long pause. Neither I nor he could speak for quite some time. Then I just hung up. Terror ends with terror and violence begets violence, I thought. There was excruciating pain in my stomach and I felt lifeless.
The people were stunned when the news spread. There was arson and violent protest in Lahore. Begum Bhutto and Benazir were not allowed to see the body, an unnecessary caution, though the two were allowed to visit the grave later under very tight security.
Sindh went silent and the Generals were very happy that they had con­trolled the situation with an iron hand. In the Federal Inspection Com­mis­sion, I saw the army people taking pride that the Sindhis had been ter­rorized into si­lence success­fully.
Many stories were current that Bhutto was tortured before hanging or he feigned unconsciousness out of fear but they were all found to be untrue. He asked for coffee and shaved his overgrown beard as he did not like “to die looking like a maulvi.” Then he walked up to the gallows. He died as a bold and courageous man, setting a very inspiring example for his followers. That one act more than anything else was to keep the PPP and Bhutto’s name alive and inspiring for a long time.
After the hanging of Bhutto, Begum Bhutto and Benazir suffered soli­tary confinements. Murtaza Bhutto and Shahnawaz Bhutto, the two sons of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, were in England. The moment they heard about the hanging of their father, they vowed to avenge it. Soon afterwards, they formed the Peoples Lib­eration Army, which was to later become Al-Zulfiqar Organization (AZO) after their base was shifted to Kabul.
After hanging Bhutto, Gen. Zia got rid of PNA also. In the event, the packing-off was sugar-coated. The political ministers (all from PNA) were asked to resign on April 21 as they were to participate in the coming elec­tions “that had to be free and fair.”
The PNA fell apart. Tehrik-i-Istiqlal had already left and the other par­ties also went their own way. The Muslim League split into two. Maulana Kausar Niazi formed his own Progressive People’s Party. Hafeez Pirzada be­came inactive and Mumtaz Bhutto had already opted to be a Sindhi na­tional­ist, preaching the reorganization of the country into a con­federation.

The sowing of winds. The year 1979 was a turning point in our his­tory. The hanging of Bhutto, the formation of Al-Zulfiqar, the promulgation of the Hadood Ordinances, sectarian conflict leading to terrorism, the start of Iran-Iraq war and the Russian occupation of Afghanistan created major challenges and problems for the country. The winds sown in 1979 became whirlwinds in the coming years.
The general elections, promised solemnly for October 1979, were also postponed, this time indefinitely. Besides PPP, other political parties were also demand­ing restoration of democracy and holding of elections. (Jama’at-i-Islami was the only exception, its Amir, Maulana Tufail Mu­hammad, being hand in glove with the General.). The rumblings of a terror­ist organization, called Al-Zulfiqar, were audible. With foreign aid from major powers suspended, the economic problems had become very serious. The only hope for relief lay with Saudi Arabia. So, to ensure its help, Islami­za­tion was being pursued enthusi­astically despite the divi­siveness it caused in the society. Iraq, in its war against Iran on all fronts, was supply­ing huge sums to Sunni ulema in Pakistan to take on Shias.
However, the tottering regime of Zia-ul-Haq was rescued and strength­ened after the Russian tanks and guns rolled into Afghanistan. President Reagan, taking over from Carter a few weeks later, made Af­ghanistan the cornerstone of his global policy against “the Evil Empire.” The bleeding of USSR in a way that Afghanistan became its Viet Nam was made the major U.S. objective. As a result, Pakistan became a frontline state in the war against communism and billions of dollars in military and eco­nomic aid poured in. Humanitarian aid also flowed in for the millions of refugees en­ter­ing Pakistan. Treating the refugees nicely was in good Mus­lim tradition and boosted the image of Zia-ul-Haq, particularly in the Muslim World.
After getting a great boost from the outside, the Zia regime was em­bold­ened to discard any pretensions of democratic aims, if it had any. De­moc­racy itself was called “un-Islamic.” A diary of the Quaid-i-Azam was “discovered” and quoted in support of this claim. (It was never published, however.) To defuse the political op­position, well-entrenched Zia was courting the religious elements, who called him “a great Muslim soldier.” Their view was strengthened by Zakat funds and Saudi rials doled out to them.

Finding a common cause. On the other hand, the efficient machinery of martial law was busy round the clock crushing its main opposition, PPP, declaring most of its politicians disqualified to take part in any political ac­tivity or to contest elections. The FIA and police were probing the land re­forms cases of leaders, listing their misdeeds, failings and follies, and en­tangling the workers into false cases to keep them behind bars. Several hun­dreds were arrested, flogged and put behind bars on petty or false charges. The special and summary military courts were busy convicting the PPP die­hards. Many of the known workers left the country through unfre­quented routes to England, Libya, Afghanistan, India, etc., to escape the rig­ours of martial law.
The politicians, with no prospects of getting into power in the near fu­ture, started coming closer to find common grounds against Zia. The house of Arshad Chaudhri was (and still is) a den of politicians. There I met Nawabzada Nasrulla Khan and Rana Zafarulla, who were now very critical of the General and felt hoodwinked and outmaneuvered. They cursed As­ghar Khan for misleading them regarding the elections in 90 days if martial law replaced the Bhutto government. It was early 1980 and the general elections were no longer in sight. They believed that oppression and sup­pression had crossed all limits and the PPP was being driven to the wall, par­ticularly in Sindh.
Nasrulla was of the view that the PPP should not be left alone in its struggle against tyranny or it might turn regionalist. PNA and PPP seemed to be coming closer due to the compulsions of the situation and the short-sight­edness of the rulers. The battle lines for struggle and suppres­sion were be­ing drawn sharply although it would still take another year be­fore the op­position parties formed the Movement for Restoration of Democ­racy (MRD). I recalled how A/Hameed had visualized soon after the imposition of the Martial Law that PPP and PNA would have to come together to oust the General.

Zia’s Islamization. After the hanging of Bhutto, the U.S. and others had suspended aid. Zia, in search of funds, decided to please Saudi Arabia. For this purpose, he launched an aggressive programme of Islamization. He had already enforced Hadood Ordinances, which enforced certain punish­ments prescribed by the Sharia but had created many legal distortions. He was now keen to introduce the Islamic provisions for the trial and punish­ment of all criminal cases.
While working in the Bureau of Police Research, I was asked to pre­pare a note on the subject. I was very keen myself for the enforcement of Sharia but found that there would be many difficulties and serious rifts would be created among various sects if it was done in haste and with­out preparing the people through persuasion and edu­cation. The civil matters like mar­riage, dissolution of marriage and inheri­tance were already within the pur­view of the personal laws of ones own sect. The criminal offences of zina (sexual intercourse outside marriage but with consent) and intoxication had already been made punishable under Islamic laws. The other criminal laws should not yet be touched as there were too many basic irreconcilable issues between various sects, particularly Shias and Sunnis. Then the be­nign face of Islam needed to be made visible rather than its punitive side.
I also gave the political perspective of sectarianism. The term “Sunna and Jama’at” itself was the name of a formula evolved by Allama al-Ash’ari and then embellished by Imam Ghazali when the Batinis, Mu’tazilis, Kharjis and others were calling one another kafirs (infidels) on petty issues, liable to be beheaded forthwith. It was then feared that if it went on like that, every group would be a kafir in the eyes of others and the Muslim umma would be divided. So it was decided by general consensus that all those who followed the Sunna, i.e., the known path of the Holy Prophet, and Jama’at, i.e., the consensus of the majority, should not be declared kafir. But in due course of time it became a sect by itself, called Ahl-i-Sunnat wal Jama’at.
The Shia influence in South Asia came with the Mughal king Huma­yun on his return from exile in Iran. Later it became a point of conflict, es­pe­cially when Muhammad Ahmad Sirhandi, better known as Mujaddad Alif Thani, bitterly opposed the Shia creed. King Aurangzeb was his ardent pupil and hence a rabid anti-Shia. Since then a severe division between Shias and Sunnis continues.
The common animosity towards the Hindus had kept the Muslims of the South Asia united. Anything divisive now was likely to open the Pan­dora’s box. Therefore, in my view, the enforcement of Sharia must not be rushed through without examining it in the total historical perspective. My advice was not fully heeded and some steps were proposed. The Shias came to know about them and they picketed the federal secretariat for three days till their demands were met. That in turn created a reaction among the Sun­nis, particularly Deobandis. Since then an ugly terrorist war has been going on between Sipah-i-Sahaba (Sunni) and Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Fiqah-i-Ja’faria (Shia), now called Tehrik-i-Ja’faria Pakistan, claiming hundreds of innocent lives on both sides. Sectarian terrorism has been one of the major causes for the vi­tiating of the law and order situation in the country, particularly in the Pun­jab. More on the subject in the chapter, “Sectarian protection to crimi­nals.”

17

The road to hell
Sahibzada Raoof Ali, while talking to me one evening in late 1976, pre­dicted that new elections would be held shortly.
“How come, sir?” I asked him. “There are still about two years to go be­fore elections will be due. Why should Bhutto Sahib bring it for­ward?”
“To satisfy the Americans,” he replied.
During at a meeting on narcotics, a senior U.S. delegate had told Sa­hib­zada Sa­hib that Presi­dent-elect Jimmy Carter had decided that Ameri­can aid in future would be given only to the genuinely elected governments in the Third World because backing the dictators there had made America unpopular among their people. Sahibzada thought that Bhutto was quite shrewd and would like to get a fresh mandate before he dealt with the new Ameri­can ad­ministration.
In those days, I was not in the mainstream of the general admini­stra­tion but did hear about many misdeeds of the Bhutto government. Punjab was seething with resentment and despondency under the op­pression of a ruthless administration. The people were losing faith in the due process of law. Some friends of Mustafa Khar had been taken to Dulai Camp in Azad Kashmir and were being tortured there without even admitting that they were in cus­tody. Writ petitions were filed in the Lahore High Court for their release but Azad Kashmir, where the camp was located, was out of its jurisdiction. In public perception, Bhutto was responsible for the murder of Nawab Muhammad Ahmad Khan. (He was later tried on this charge and was ultimately hanged. More about it in the next chapter.) Hanif Ramay had been dismissed and sent from the Chief Minister House to the infamous interrogation center in the La­hore Fort for pleading in his book, “The Case of the Punjab,” a fair deal for the largest province. Raja Munawwar and many of Ramay’s other friends had joined the Muslim League. Nawab Sadiq Husain Qureshi, consid­ered to be only a stooge of Bhutto and without any following of his own, had become the Chief Minister. Jama’at-i-Is­lami, Tehrik-i-Istiqlal and Pakistan Democratic Party, under their respec­tive lead­ers, Mian Tufail Muhammad, Asghar Khan and Nawabzada Nasrulla, were very active in mobilizing the public opinion against the oppressive govern­ment.
In the Punjab, there were frequent bomb blasts, for which the govern­ment blamed the National Awami Party and its leader, Wali Khan, but the people pointed their fingers towards Bhutto and his Federal Security Force. An ASI of FSF in plain clothes was caught red-handed by passengers at the Lahore railway station while planting a bomb in the bathroom of the com­partment in which Air Marshal Asghar Khan was traveling so that a case could be made against him and his party. The ASI was saved by the Rail­way Police from being lynched by the public but in the pro­cess he blurted out his identity. The press had been gagged and even an incident like that could not find any men­tion. The news, as it happens in such condi­tions, traveled far and wide by word of mouth.
There was turmoil elsewhere also. NWFP was already afire with Wali Khan and other NAP leaders facing their trial for treason before a tribunal in Hyderabad. Balochistan had been trampled by army action since long and most of the leaders there had fled to Afghanistan. Even situ­ation in Sindh, the home province of Bhutto, was not calm. There were disturbing reports from Karachi.
There was fear all around. The administration, thoroughly unnerved, had become totally subservient and was willing to carry out all orders, right or wrong, of the rulers. I could see a strong storm coming but most public ser­vants thought everything was under tight control. The Intelligence Bu­reau, Inter Services Intelli­gence, Special Branches of the provinces and the district ad­ministra­tions were describing the situation as “most ideal.” Such assess­ments could not be made after what had been done to the people un­less the officers were totally oblivious of the situation on the ground. So I could not agree with colleagues in the intelligence agencies, who would re­peat the same views to me also. Only a politician with insight can make a realistic assess­ment of the political situation, not an obsequious bureaucrat, whose mind works in a to­tally different way. A bureaucrat will always be indifferent, if not hostile, to public feelings. It will take an extraordinary ef­fort for him to have empathy and identity with public feelings and reach the right con­clu­sions. So, I have always been suspicious of the bureaucratic assess­ments of public opinion on politics and social issues.
By then Bhutto had been surrounded by those who urged “strong admin­istrative approach,” which would cause only al­ienation of the people. The so-called strong and shrewd administrators like Saeed Ahmad Khan, Waqar Ah­mad, Masood Mahmood, Wakil Khan and their ilk had already taken Bhutto on the dark path of illegality and criminality to a point of no return.

Bureaucrats have their way. My friend, Tikka Muhammad Iqbal Khan, an intelligent, well-informed and saga­cious poli­tician, was close to Bhutto. He asked me for my assessment several times and I explained to him the risks in holding elec­tions. I pointed out the loss of Bhutto cha­risma, that had been caused by high-handedness and foolishness of his so-called strong administrators. He agreed with me generally but said that the assessments of all intelli­gence agencies and senior officers about elections were totally different from mine. He could not persuade Bhutto to change his mind and the bureaucrats had the last word. The general elections to the Na­tional and Provincial Assemblies were an­nounced to be held on March 7 and 10, 1977, respectively. Carried away by the possibility of a dazzling display of popularity, Bhutto had gambled his po­litical career on the as­sessments of a few bureaucrats, who had no awareness of the public mood and political dy­namics and probably were also not loyal to him.
Immediately after the announcement of elections, nine opposition par­ties joined to form the Pakistan National Alliance (PNA), something Bhutto had been told was not likely. It was a severe blow to Bhutto’s hopes for a two-thirds majority but now it was too late to do anything except to concen­trate on the election campaign and administrative manipulations. Bhutto based his ap­peal to the people on his achievements in foreign affairs. He had re­covered occupied territory as well as POWs without conceding any­thing to India. There were no war trials and no division of assets with Bang­ladesh. Then he had really put the scattered pieces together and built up the morale of the peo­ple and the army. He also gave the country a consen­sus constitution. He genuinely felt proud of his achievements, little realizing that he had squan­dered away everything by rid­ing roughshod in matters of in­ternal administra­tion. He forgot that oppressive measures had not helped Yahya Khan even under martial law. How could such methods help a poli­tician, whose authority depended entirely on the goodwill of the people?
As the election campaign picked up, PNA was dominating while PPP ap­peared to be on the run. The PNA played on the theme of inhu­man treat­ment and tyranny by Bhutto against his political adversaries and at­tracted tremen­dous public response. The religious parties in the PNA mo­bilized their committed and diehard workers. Bhutto also committed a seri­ous blunder by getting himself elected unopposed from Larkana. To prevent him from filing his nomi­nation papers in time, the abduction of his oppo­nent, Maulana Jan Mu­hammad Abbasi, of Jama’at-i-Islami, was arranged, allegedly by Khalid Kharal, Deputy Commissioner (later Information Minis­ter in Benazir’s second government). All Chief Ministers followed the exam­ple set by their leader and got themselves elected unopposed. Thus a linger­ing doubt was cast over the whole election process right from the beginning.
In that suspicious and charged atmosphere, the elections to the Na­tional Assembly were held on March 7. The people showed great enthusi­asm and participated in large numbers. Most people believed that PNA had won but the results next day gave a landslide victory to the PPP. There was a wide­spread rejection of the results and the PNA leadership announced the boycott of the provincial elections scheduled for March 10.
I saw the roads deserted on March 8 as I traveled from Rawal­pindi to La­hore by road. The people appeared to be in a state of shock as if they had been betrayed and robbed. The deadly silence spoke vol­umes and could be the pre­cursor of a big storm. The boycott of elec­tions to the Pro­vincial As­semblies on March 10 was complete because the polling stations had been de­serted and very few voters turned up. Still, the official results showed “heavy turn-out.” That claim washed away whatever was left of the credibility of the elections. Thus, any remaining doubts about the alle­ga­tions of rigging in the Na­tional Assembly elections were also gone.

Beginning of the end. It did not take long for the Pakistan Na­tional Al­liance to give momentum to its agitation against Bhutto. It soon organ­ized itself into a movement, with highly motivated wings for students, women, lawyers and la­bour. A large procession, led by Asghar Khan, was taken out in Lahore from Nila Gumbad, near Anarkali Bazaar. Then pro­cessions started coming out everywhere despite unprecedented repression by the government machinery. The campaign picked up in intensity, volume and scope through­out the coun­try while the administration tried to crush it ruth­lessly with lathi-charge, tear gas and at places even with firing that caused many casualties. Fre­quent gen­eral strikes paralyzed business and industry. There was vio­lence all around, with the protesters often indulging in arson and loot­ing. The fact was that those who had sown the wind of violence and illegalities were now reaping the whirlwind. The people who had been suppressed so long were now up in arms.
The PPP as a party was not visible and the situation was being han­dled by the government machinery only as a law and order issue. There were in­creased attacks on the PPP offices, its important leaders and their properties. In Lahore, Ratan Cinema and a hotel on McLeod Road, both belonging to PPP stalwarts, were burnt, along with some persons inside. Great fear was created among the PPP leaders and workers and many started leaving their resi­dences. The religious leaders introduced a very at­tractive slogan, Nizam-i-Mustafa (the administrative system of the Holy Prophet), and the movement, already con­sidered “a jihad against an op­pressive un-Islamic government,” took a new dimension.
The worst came on April 9, when the newly elected Punjab Pro­vincial Assembly was to meet in Lahore. The whole city appeared to be protesting. No government-owned public bus could move on the roads and any that did was burnt. Many processions were converging on the Assembly chambers. IGP Ch. Fazl-i-Haq was himself on the spot. The lower echelons became nervous because of his presence and went awry, committing serious errors of judgment. The police stopped the processions on various roads leading to the Assembly chambers, resulting in many deaths and inju­ries by police firing. There was arson and looting all day long.
The way a procession of women was handled near the Civil Lines po­lice station will always be a black mark on PPP. A day earlier, a large num­ber of prostitutes were recruited as temporary policewomen, ironi­cally by a police officer who is now a Haji and claims to be very relig­ious. They were pro­vided hurriedly sewn uniforms and were asked to remain ready in the police station. (They came to be known as “the Nath Force,” because nath, a circu­lar orna­ment worn by women at the nose end, has a special signifi­cance for prosti­tutes. When a virgin prostitute is deflowered after a kind of auction held at a special function by her guardians, the ceremony is called “removal of the nath.”) The Nath Force pounced upon the women in the procession, abused them in filthiest possible language, manhandled them, even tore their clothes. This incident, one of the most quoted, caused great revulsion among the peo­ple, whose social norms demand decent treatment to women even in the worst conditions.
Bhutto was in Lahore and monitored the operations himself. He must have realized the gravity of the situation after watching the mood of the peo­ple. The same evening he called on Maulana Maudoodi, head of Jama’at-i-Islami, at his home in Ichhra to seek his support in calming the masses but it was already too late. Moreover, the PNA was not Maudoodi’s Jama’at alone. It had eight other parties, with units to the lowest levels, which car­ried on the movement even after the major leaders were arrested.
The PNA had 31 demands, with resignation of Bhutto being at the top. Bhutto tried surreptitiously to win over Rafiq Bajwa, the Secretary General of PNA, who became a pariah the moment people came to know that he had se­cretly met the Prime Minister in Rawalpindi, having flown from Lahore under a pseudo­nym. The time for tricks was over.
Tikka Iqbal, an advisor to the Punjab Governor Sadiq Husain Qureshi, would visit me frequently to discuss the situation. I would tell him that the only way out was conciliation instead of confrontation, dialogue rather than danda. He would agree with me but say that Bhutto had been surrounded by hawks, who had made it an ego issue for him. Bhutto himself was not pre­pared to believe that “a group of pig­mies” could outdo him in politics. He consid­ered it beneath his position to have dialogue with people like Nas­rulla Khan, Mufti Mahmood, Asghar Khan, Wali Khan and others. Both sides were locked in a no-win situation. Bhutto wanted to crush PNA while PNA was determined to bring him down.

Danda, not dialogue. In that atmosphere of deathly deadlock, a friend, Mian Ahmad Ali, told me that he had met Nasrulla Khan and Hamza in the PNA of­fice and they were sure of their ultimate success.
“I don’t think they can succeed,” I observed. “In my assessment, Bhutto will fight to the end. In the process, the system may fail and democ­racy will be the casualty.”
“What is the way out, then?” he asked.
“I don’t know. But I think a face-saving way out has to be given to Bhutto. He too is trapped.”
“How can it be done?”
“PNA cannot negotiate a way out unless it is prepared to drop the de­mand for Bhutto’s resignation,” I replied. “Don’t expect him to commit po­litical suicide. If the demand for resignation is dropped, a compromise can become easy.”
I was expressing my opinion only on his asking but Mian Ahmad Ali went to Nasrulla Khan, who according to him, was quite amenable to the idea and had said that the demand for resignation was only a pressure tactic. Mian believed that sincere moves for a settlement were likely to be welcome by PNA. He asked me to intervene.
“How can I?” I observed. “I am not a politician.”
While we were talking, Tikka Iqbal dropped in and joined our discus­sion. The consensus was that negotiations should take place to find a way out and the demand for Bhutto’s resig­nation should be dropped. Tikka Iqbal pursued the idea with Bhutto.
The next day, April 23, Nasrulla Khan was also arrested, to the utter dis­appointment of Ahmad Ali, but the idea had been floated. In the first week of May, Muhammad Arshad Chaudhri, a senior leader of Nas­rulla’s Pakistan Demo­cratic Party, told me that negotiations between the PNA and Bhutto had been arranged through the mediation of Saudi Arabian Ambas­sador, Riaz al-Khatib, and were taking place in the Po­lice College, Sihala. But somehow the negotia­tions broke down after only a few days and all PNA leaders were sent to far-off jails.
The agitation was continued by the next tier of leadership and gained so much intensity that the army had to be called in several cities. Even the army was resisted and people came forward to lay down their lives. A few senior army officers refused to order firing on the protest­ing crowds during the lim­ited martial law imposed in three big cities. The martial law was, however, de­clared unconstitutional by Lahore and Sindh High Courts. The chiefs of army, navy and air force, in a very unusual move, expressed public support for the constitutional government by appearing on television but the people were not impressed and the agitation did not abate. Asghar Khan, a retired air force chief, wrote an open letter to the armed forces, urging them to do their consti­tutional duty by removing an illegitimate government that had violated the constitution blatantly.
On the other side, Bhutto went into the bazaars of Rawalpindi, waving a letter of the U.S. Secretary of State and describing the whole agitation as a part of the U.S.-sponsored grand design against him. It did not cut much ice.
I happened to meet the President, Ch. Fazal Elahi in May while I was in Rawalpindi for a meeting. Even a man of his insight thought that the situation could be controlled by sufficient military force, as was done in 1953 in La­hore during the anti-Ahmadiya agitation. “Sir, 1977 is not like 1953 and the issue has a much wider appeal,” I told him. He did not agree with me when I men­tioned the need for a meaningful dialogue.
Some desperate measures were being taken. Mustafa Khar re­joined the PPP and became a Special Assistant to the Prime Minister. Bhutto seemed to have reconciled with him to extricate himself from the Dulai camp mess. Rao Rashid was posted as the DIB in those very days in place of Sh. Muhammad Akram. Still wise counsel was not prevailing. Tikka Iqbal ap­peared dis­mayed. He told me, “Anybody suggesting a political way out is dubbed by the hawks in the chambers of power as disloyal, traitor and an enemy of Bhutto.”

Unscheduled entry in the act. While in Islamabad for an offi­cial meeting on treatment and rehabilitation of drug addicts, I went to see my friend Arshad Chaudhri at his home on June 3. A large number of IB and SB staff outside it created an eerie atmosphere. I did not know what was happening inside. I entered the house in my usual manner and found Pir Pagara, Nawabzada Nasrulla Khan, Mufti Mah­mood and Prof. Ghafoor in the drawing room. Prof. Ghafoor was giving an interview to a BBC corre­spon­dent. The leaders were as surprised to see me as I was to see them. I had most innocently and unwittingly walked on to the stage of the political drama while it was at its climax. I immediately realized the gravity of my mistake and left the house with the profoundest apologies. It occurred to me that they might suspect me for spying on them on behalf of the Government. That would make me look dishonourable in their eyes. But then I thought that they were intelligent people and would under­stand that such things were never done in that naive manner.
I had hardly reached my room in the Government Hostel when I got a call from Naseeb Butt, Personal Assistant to SP, Special Branch, Rawal­pindi, who had served with me also. He told me that my visit to the house of Arshad Chaudhri had been reported immediately. He knew that Arshad Chaudhri was an old friend of mine but was afraid that the visit would be definitely misunderstood. I was really worried because Waqar Ah­mad, Sec­retary Establishment, was very quick in taking summary action on the small­est lapse of a government officer.
I went to see DIB Rao Rashid the same evening and told him about my visit to the house of Arshad Chaudhri. I had served with him while he was IGP Punjab. He was delighted to know about the inci­dent and wanted me to col­lect information on what was going on in that house. He told me that serious negotiations between Bhutto and PNA had been ar­ranged and the leaders had been brought to Islamabad for that pur­pose. Rao Rashid told me that he sin­cerely wanted the negotiations to suc­ceed and I believed him because he was an honourable man.
I had really landed myself in a strange and a difficult situation. I ru­mi­nated over the matter and then went to Arshad Chaudhri and told him of my con­versation with Rao Rashid. I was in a moral conflict as I did not want to be­have dishonourably towards any party. He discussed the matter with Nasrulla Khan and later told me that I was welcome any time into his house because the PNA leaders had nothing to hide. In fact, they would pre­fer that truth should reach Bhutto through a channel of his own choice in­stead of conjectures that could vitiate the whole process.
I told Rao Rashid that I had discussed everything with Arshad Chaudhri. “He says even Rao Sahib himself is welcome to listen to our de­liberations,” I said. “Their only concern is that they may not be cheated. Their ulti­mate objective is to have free and fair elections to the National and Provincial Assemblies.”

Bhutto drags his feet. During the negotiations, Bhutto was assisted by Maulana Kausar Niazi and Hafiz Peerzada while Mufti Mahmood, the Presi­dent of PNA, was assisted by Nasrulla Khan and Prof. Ghafoor. Both teams worked hard over a long and difficult agenda. The PNA wanted the issues to be resolved in the shortest possible time so that it could go for re-elections while Bhutto wanted to drag the negotiations so that the agitation cooled off. Bhutto wanted to pro­long not only the negotiations but even the re-elections if ultimately agreed to. While the negotiations were going on, he left on a tour of several Muslim countries to give an im­pression that he was taking things easy and there was nothing seriously wrong at home. But the time for tricks had passed. Now truth had to triumph, as Arshad Chaudhri always said.
On the streets, another kind of confrontation was being built up. Mustafa Khar was belatedly organizing the PPP workers in the Punjab to come out and dis­play “the popularity of PPP and Bhutto.” It was a danger­ous game and cre­ated the specter of a civil war. The concern of the army became known both to Rao Rashid and PNA.
The parleys were resumed on the return of Bhutto but this round started in a more vitiated atmosphere. PNA leaders wanted to fix a deadline for an accord or they would step up the movement and be ready to go to jail again.
The negotiating team used to brief the PNA Council on the progress of talks and get briefing for the next session. In one such meeting, they de­cided that everyone should get his clothes washed on double rate (for ex­press deliv­ery) so that they did not go to jail while waiting for clean clothes from the laundry. Rao Rashid informed Bhutto about it and he in turn men­tioned it to the negotiating team to impress them with his ability to know all about them.

Zia brings darkness. Around June 26, I came to know that se­cret preparations were being made for the imposition of martial law. Rao Rashid was upset when I told him about it.
“You have brought bad news,” he commented.
“Bad but true,” I said. “Only four generals are not in favour of mar­tial law, according to my information. All others are for it because they think there will be civil war after the breakdown of negotiations. The PPP workers will come out against the PNA workers and there will be a blood bath. The generals also believe that there is a plan to kill all PNA leaders.”
“Somebody is painting a wrong picture to prejudice the generals,” he said.
“May be but Bhutto Sahib should clinch the issue with maximum speed instead of moving at a snail’s pace. I am certain about the need for urgency. If the negotiations are finalized in time, the danger to de­mocracy will be over.” He agreed with me.
“What will be the likely outcome in case of re-elections?” he asked.
“PPP is likely to get a comfortable majority at least in the Pun­jab.” I gave him my assessment.
The next day Arshad Chaudhri came to know independently that martial law was imminent. “Something should be done to stop it,” he sug­gested.
“The only thing that can do it is the immediate finalization of the ac­cord,” I told him.
I again went to Rao Rashid to tell him what Arshad Chaudhri had learnt through his own independent source.
“Bhutto does not believe it,” Rao Rashid told me. “He thinks it is a PNA pressure tactic.”
“Even then there is no harm in finalizing the matter immediately,” I said.
I suggested that the parleys might be held continuously and no­body should be allowed to get up until an accord was reached. The PNA and PPP teams did hold the parleys the whole night on June 28 and reached an ac­cord.
“They followed your advice literally,” Rao Rashid told me the next day. “Your name will go down in history.”
I smiled and thanked him. “I’ll be very happy even if I am men­tioned in a footnote.”
The next day I met Mustafa Khar in the Prime Minister House and told him that martial law would come if the accord was not made public im­medi­ately. He did not believe me.
“If martial law was to be imposed, the best time was 9th April,” he said. “There is no chance of martial law now. Earlier the PPP workers were de­moralized. Now they have somebody to look up to.” His tone showed great confidence.
“Well, sir, I have given you the information,” I said. “You can still avert it.” I passed on the information to Maj. Gen. Imtiaz, Military Secretary to Prime Minister, and also to Ch. Anwar Aziz, my friend and a very shrewd politician, but both did not like to believe it.
After an agreement had been reached on June 28, the PNA team had to face great opposition in their Council. Air Marshal Asghar Khan was talking tough. The accord provided for fresh elections in three months, on October 18 to be exact, under the supervision of a supreme council, com­posed of equal number of members from the Government and the opposi­tion. Air Marshall demanded that the accord should become a part of the Consti­tution and be enforceable through the Supreme Court. He took Nas­rulla Khan aside and told him that he would get the new elections from the army within three months but Bhutto could not be relied upon to be fair during re-elections and might even resile from his commitment after the agi­tation cooled off. On the insistence of Air Marshal, the venue for further PNA Council meetings was shifted to the house of Col. Tasaddaq, of Tehrik-i-Istiqlal, instead of the home of Arshad Chaudhri. I smelled a rat.
I told Rao Rashid about the thinking of Air Marshal Asghar Khan. Bhutto was pleased that there were serious differences within the PNA. He was trying to catch on a straw.
“Bhutto is satisfied that the army will not interfere,” he told me. “It has been checked for him by Gen. Tikka Khan. It is difficult to press the point any further.” Rao was showing helplessness.
The PNA, under pressure from Asghar Khan, continued to insist that the accord should be a part of the constitution while Bhutto believed that it would make the constitu­tion a joke. He was happy that PNA leaders were fighting among them­selves. The boat seemed to be capsizing within sight of the coast. Those who had laid down their lives to restore the sanctity of the ballot box had actually paved way for another martial law because the self­ish­ness and short-sightedness of a few leaders on both sides were leading the country there.
I was with Sahibzada Farooq Ali, the Speaker of the National As­sembly, in the afternoon of July 4 when Arshad Chaudhri came rushing with the informa­tion that martial law would be imposed that night. What could be done? It was too late but there was a fighting chance. He rushed to the home of Col. Tasaddaq where a press conference was to be addressed by all PNA leaders to dispel an impression of dissension. Arshad Chaudhri called Nawabzada outside and informed him of the latest development. Arshad re­quested him to address the confer­ence himself to make the accord public immediately, even if others did not agree. Nasrulla Khan did that but it was too late. His an­nouncement that ac­cord had been reached did not appear in the next morn­ing’s newspapers.
All efforts to save the democratic system ultimately failed. The army moved in during the night and arrested all major leaders of both sides. The martial law was imposed on the night of July 5. Gen. Mu­hammad Zia-ul-Haq, Chief of Army Staff, became the Chief Martial Law Administrator. Zia, which literally means “light,” brought another dawn of darkness and another—much longer—night of the generals.

Raj kare-ga Khalsa. The mood of the people changed overnight. Most of those who had been opposing Bhutto and PPP suddenly turned their ire against the martial law as the pain of the earlier regimes had not yet been for­gotten. Gen. Zia, while intending the very opposite, had given a new political life to the dying PPP as there was a sudden sentimental surge in fa­vour of Bhutto and his party. Gen. Zia was shocked on the reaction of the people, as Maj. Gen. Abdur Rahman told me. He was looking into the womaniz­ing epi­sodes of Rao Rashid. “Some women of taste did like Rao Rashid for his being handsome and manly,” I told Gen. Rahman. “Why should CMLA bother about that? He had better worry about the public mood.”
I also told A.R. Shefta, a close friend of Gen. Zia, about the pub­lic re­jec­tion of martial law. Shefta later told me that the General had decided to revive democracy and hold elections shortly but was worried about the out­come.
“Tell him not to worry,” I assured him. “PNA will secure a ma­jor­ity.”
“But the General’s worry is that PNA will fall apart and Bhutto would be back in power.”
“Politically strong Bhutto will keep the PNA united,” I said. “The Gen­eral should not worry on that score.”
“Why don’t they merge into one party?” Shefta expressed the Gen­eral’s wish.
“That is difficult as every party has its background, history and pro­gramme,” I explained. “They were united as an alliance only on a minimum programme. You should not expect PNA to become a single party. They will, however, remain united against Bhutto. The regime should go ahead with the elections on October 18 as already an­nounced.”
“No elections in that case. No question of it.” He spoke with an air of finality, sitting in his suite in the Lahore Inter-Continental Hotel. “Why should the General get shoe-beating from Bhutto for the sake of these rag tag politi­cians and mullas if they cannot get together.” He seemed to be fully aware of the General’s thinking.
I was silent and looked out of the window. It was August 8. A multi­tude of poor people was walking to the airport to receive Bhutto, who was coming to Lahore for the first time after his dismissal. Shefta also watched them. The lines went on, unbroken.
“I don’t agree with your assessment, Sardar Sahib,” Shefta broke the si­lence. “Bhutto will win and destroy my friend Zia.” He was still looking at the unending stream of people on the Mall outside. I did not say any­thing. Fear is very difficult to shake off, especially for the peo­ple who walk in the corridors of power.
During our evening walk, I told A/Hameed about my conversation with Shefta.
“There will be no elections on October 18,” he said. “PPP and PNA will have to join hands if they want to dislodge the General.”
I could not believe my ears. In fact, I became annoyed with him. “The General has given a public commitment,” I protested. “How could he go back on that? It would be the worst example of public bad faith.”
A/Hameed said, “That is what will happen. You will see that raj kare-ga Khalsa, baqi rahe na ko. Only the Generals will rule.”
They started the game very soon. Begum Nasim Wali Khan had been one of the vociferous supporters of martial law to throw out Bhutto rather than have an agreement with him. So, one of the earliest steps of the new regime was to release Wali Khan and other NAP leaders. As a quid pro quo, Wali Khan demanded accountability of the Bhutto govern­ment before elec­tions were held, under the slogan of Pehle ihte­sab, phir intekhab (first accountabil­ity, then elections). His demand was supported also by some other PNA lead­ers, who were in favour of martial law. This demand was later used as one of the main justifica­tions to postpone elections.
While in Makkah on his umra visit, Gen. Zia announced his “determined resolve” to hold elections on schedule. And while in Teh­ran on his way back, he observed that the politicians “will follow me on my whis­tle.” The statement was resented but various politicians did follow him.
The elections were postponed because Bhutto had re-emerged as the most popular personality in the backdrop of martial law while in a demo­cratic process and struggle he had lost his popular appeal. The peo­ple re­jected him as a high-handed ruler but preferred even his tough tactics over martial law.
A/Hameed felt that Bhutto without power would grow in public es­teem. The image of a persecuting and bullying Bhutto would be re­placed by that of a suffering and struggling leader. Martial law would revive him as a hero who reconstructed the country after a humiliating defeat, got back the occu­pied territories, brought back the POWs and hosted the first and the only Is­lamic Summit in which every single member was represented. Now that he had lost his teeth that he used to bite indiscriminately, his sins of maladminis­tration and high-hand­edness would be forgotten and for­given.