General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq,محمد ضياء الحق

General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq,محمد ضياء الحق, August 12, 1924 – August 17, 1988, was the 4th Chief Martial Law Administrator and the sixth President of Pakistan from July 1977 to his death in August 1988. Distinguished by his role in the Black September in Jordan military operation in 1970, he was appointed Chief of Army Staff in 1976 by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto after Bhutto forcefully retired seven senior lieutenant-generals who where tainted with their role in the East-Pakistan war in order to bring and promote Zia to four star rank. After widespread civil disorder, he planned and overthrew ruling Prime Minister Bhutto in a bloodless coup d'état on July 5, 1977, code name Fair Play, and became the state's third military ruler to impose martial law. Zia's idea of religious conservatism in Pakistan became the primary line of his military government. Throughout the 1980s, Zia managed to consolidate more and more power in his hands, gradually putting down all opposition groups in Pakistan.
He initially ruled as Chief Martial Law Administrator (CMLA), but later installed himself as the President of Pakistan in September 1978. As both President and CMLA, Zia forcefully crushed the secular-communist and socialist democratic struggle led by the eldest daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto. Zia abandoned the previous economical policies of Bhutto, and replaced them with capitalism and privatization of the major industries of Pakistan that had been nationalized by Bhutto in 1970s. The Pakistan economy became one the fastest growing economies in South Asia. However, during this period of economic and social change, Zia curbed and violently dealt with the political rivals in 1980s. His reign is often regarded as a period of mass military repression in which hundreds of thousands of political rivals, minorities, and journalists were executed or tortured, including Pakistan Army's senior general officers convicted in coup-d'état plots against his regime.
Zia's major domestic initiatives included the consolidation of the nuclear development, which was initiated by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto; the restarting of the space program as spin-off of the nuclear project, denationalization and deregulation and the state's Islamization. His tenure saw the disbanding of the Baloch insurgency. His endorsement of the Pakistan Muslim League (the founding party of Pakistan) initiated its mainstream revival. However, he is most remembered for his foreign policy; the subsidizing of the Mujahideen movement during the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan which led to the Soviet-Russian withdrawal from Afghanistan Socialist Republic. Zia entered into an undeclared secret war with Soviet Afghanistan and its ally Soviet Union. Zia authorized secret funding and expansion of intelligence operations in Pakistan and abroad, initially focusing on anti-communist operations. He was described by some as a "fundamentalist Sunni dictator".
Zia died along with several of his top generals and admirals and the then United States Ambassador to Pakistan Arnold Lewis Raphel in a suspicious air crash near Bahawalpur (Punjab) on 17 August 1988.

Zia died in a plane crash on August 17, 1988. After witnessing a US M1 Abrams tank demonstration in Bahawalpur, Zia had left the small town in the Punjab province by C-130 Hercules aircraft. Shortly after a smooth takeoff, the control tower lost contact with the aircraft. Witnesses who saw the plane in the air afterward claim it was flying erratically, then nosedived and exploded on impact. In addition to Zia, 31 others died in the plane crash, including Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Akhtar Abdur Rahman, close associate of Zia, Brigadier Siddique Salik, the American Ambassador to Pakistan Arnold Lewis Raphel and General Herbert M. Wassom, the head of the U.S. Military aid mission to Pakistan. Ghulam Ishaq Khan, the Senate Chairman announced Zia's death on radio and TV. The manner of his death has given rise to many conspiracy theories. There is speculation that America, India, the Soviet Union (as retaliation for US-Pakistani supported attacks in Afghanistan) or an alliance of them and internal groups within Zia's military were behind the attack.
A board of inquiry was set up to investigate the crash. It concluded the most probable cause of the crash was a criminal act of sabotage perpetrated in the aircraft. It also suggested that poisonous gases were released which incapacitated the passengers and crew, which would explain why no Mayday signal was given.
Maj Gen (retd) Mahmud Ali Durrani, claimed later that reports of Israeli and Indian involvement in Ziaul Haq’s plane crash were only speculations and he rejected the statement that was given by former president Ghulam Ishaq Khan that the presidential plane was blown up in the air. Durrani stated that Zia's plane was destroyed while landing.


His funeral was held on August 19, 1988 in Islamabad. Also in attendance was his successor President Ghulam Ishaq Khan, who had earlier officially announced Zia's death in a nationwide address.