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THERAWALPINDI
CONSPIRACY
1951
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The Timas 1nd Trl1I ol
THERAWALPINDI
CONSPIRACY
1951
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HASAN ZAHEER
Karachi
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Oxford New York New Delhi
1998
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Dedicated to myp arents,
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Contents
Abbreviations
VUI
.
Preface
IX
Dramatis Personae xxx
1. The Denouement 1
2. The First Cause -The State of Jammu and Kashmir 28
3. The Conspiracy 161
4. The Communist Connection 204
5. The Trial and.the Judgment 239
Epilogue 298
Appendices 303
I. List of accused, with the acting and substantive ranks of the
officers of the armed services, and dates of arrest, in the
order in which they were referred to during the trial
II. Rawalpindi Conspiracy (Special Tribunal), Act, 1951
III. Formal charges against the accused on trial before the
Special Tribunal (Section. 3 of the Rawalpindi Conspiracy
[Special Tribunal Act, 1951])
IV. Laws applied in the Conspiracy case
Index 319
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Abbreviations
AC Air Commodore
AIG Assistant Inspector General (Police)
AK Azad Kashmir
AJK Azad Jammu & Kashmir
AKRF Azad Kashmir Regular Forces
Bde. Brigade
CGS Chief of General Staff
cos
Chief of Staff
Cr.PC Criminal Procedure Code
OCGS Deputy Chief of General Staff
OMO Director Military Operations
DIG Deputy Inspector General (Police)
Div Division
DSO Distinguished Service Order
DSP Deputy Superintendent, Police
Ex. Exhibit
FFR Frontier Force Regiment
First Information Report (to the Police)
FIR
GOC General Officer Commanding
ICS Indian Civil Service
INA Indian National Army
IG Inspector General (Police)
JSCC Joint Services Chiefs' Committee
MBE Member of the British Empire
NWFP North West Frontier Province
PPC Pakistan Penal Code
PW Prosecution Witness
RPAF
Royal Pakistan Air Force
SP Superintendent of Police
UP Uttar Pradesh
UNCIP United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan
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Preface
The steel trunks, cupboards, and racks, and the bundles of old
records were lying scattered in the high-ceilinged rooms and
corridors of the temporary Cabinet office in Rawalpindi. The
office was in the process of being shifted to its permanent abode in
the newly-constructed Cabinet blocl< in Islamabad. All the records
that had not yet been brought into the archives for lack of accom
modation were being catalogued and arranged for deposit in the
records room for which sufficient space had been allocated in the
new premises. In that clutter, my attention was attracted to a black
steel Chubb dispatch box with the words 'Prime Minister'
stencilled on it. Such boxes used to be the standard equipment at
the Secretariat for carrying the files of the secretaries and
ministers. The key was not readily available, and no one knew
what the box contained. Next morning, it was brought to me and
opened. Neatly stacked in it, in separate covers, one for each day,
were the daily reports of the proceedings of the Special Tribunal
trying the Rawalpindi Conspiracy case in Hyderabad central jail.
Prepared after court hours by the CID staff, two copies of the daily
report were sent the same evening by Habibullah Malik, Superin
tendent of Police Punjab CID, to the Secretary Interior, G. Ahmed,
..who submitted one copy for information to the Prime Minister.
The report contained the gist of the evidence recorded, the legal
points raised by the counsels, and the other happenings in the court
during the day.1
As I read through these papers, I was transported back about
three and a half decades to a warm March evening in Lahore at the
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X THE R AWALPINDI CONSPIRACY 1951
Plaza cinema off the Mall. I had gone to see a movie with a few
friends and, just as we were passing through the foyer, someone
mentioned the Prime Minister's statement about the Conspiracy in
hushed tones. The crowd surging to the hall momentarily held back.
Young and impressionable, and enamoured as we were of"the
glamour of army officers, our sympathies were all with ·the
arrested officers. Later in the evening, someone who had come
from Rawalpindi told us in whispers, all the time looking round to
ensure that no one could overhear, that a lot of documents had
been seized from Akbar Khan's house and office. A few days later,
there was a rumour that the tip off regarding the Conspiracy had
been given by British intelligence. The attempt to overthrow the
government was something novel and beyond the experience of
the people who were used to the serene stability of British rule.
The general reaction to the Conspiracy, except perhaps in some ..
sections, was adverse: it was regarded as treason.
The mystery, romance, and ideology surrounding it have, over
the years, befogged the nature of the Conspiracy, though in broad
outline it had come to be generally known. Very little has been
written about it, and most of the existing literature on the subject is
based on preconceived notions and received knowledge. The
Cabinet division, which carries out declassification of its old records
on a regular basis, has since opened up the Conspiracy papers.
This study, based on primary oral and documentary sources, and
placed in the context of the times in which the events took place, is
my second endeavour (The Separation ofE ast Pakistan published
by Oxford University Press being the first) at presenting an
objective account of yet another significant event in the history of
Pakistan.
The Rawalpindi Conspiracy of 1951 was the first attempt in
the armed forces to take over power by overthrowing a democratic
government established by law. Of all the conspiracies in the army
that have rocked the country in the last fifty years, it was the only
one in which elements from the armed forces had coalesced with a
secular and progressive political party; none of the others have
been openly associated with a regular political party. The myth
has been constantly propagated by leftist intellectuals that there
was actually no conspiracy, but that one was fabricated and the
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