The Time and Trial of the Rawalpindi Conspiracy, 1951: The First Coup Attempt in Pakistan PDF
Preview The Time and Trial of the Rawalpindi Conspiracy, 1951: The First Coup Attempt in Pakistan
no Tl•ll ... T•l•I ,, THERAWALPINDI CONSPIRACY 1951 """'" •Google UNIVERSOrITigYir O~lFlr oMrnI CHIGAN Or glnal ircm UNIVERSrn' OF MICHIGAN \ The Timas 1nd Trl1I ol THERAWALPINDI CONSPIRACY 1951 Tiii FIPlt C1111 Att1m11t II P11ll1t11 HASAN ZAHEER Karachi OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Oxford New York New Delhi 1998 Google Origiral frcn1 0191t1zea by UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN DS t' i ... ) ~- ... .. ; "., :\:. _..,. .... ~ >. I r-7 , .1 ) ' 1~xf"ord University Press, Walton Street, Oxford OX2 6DP I Cl , Oxford New York 1 ('= I r ~ Athens Auckland Bangkok Bombay , 1 - Calcutta Cape Town Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madras Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi Paris Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Oxford is a trade mark of Oxford University Press © Oxford University Press, 1998 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted. in any form or by any means, . without the prior pennission in writing of Oxford University Press. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. ISBN 0 19 577892 8 Printed in Pakistan at Mas Printers, Karachi. Published by Ameena Saiyid, Oxford University Press 5-Bangalore Town, Sharae Faisal P.O. Box 13033, Karachi-75350, Pakistan. Google Origiral frcn1 0191t1zea by UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Dedicated to myp arents, HasnainFatima and Sham.shad Hussain Gol gle Or tro m ogtz " UNIVERSffY OF MICHIGAN gle 0f1Qlnal fror:-1 GoL 01git1ie "Y UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 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 Google Original from 0191t1zed by UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 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 Google Origiral frcn1 0191t1zea by UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 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 Google Original from 0191t1zed by UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 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 Google rron1 Origi~al oig1tlze1lby UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
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