General Zia seizes power in Pakistan

On July 5, 1977 General Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, the army chief, deposed Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in a bloodless coup called Operation Fair Play and imposed martial law. He promised elections within 90 days, but they were put off again and again, and Zia ruled until his death in 1988.²

Bhutto, who founded the Pakistan People's Party in 1967, had taken power in December 1971 after the loss of East Pakistan and had given Pakistan its 1973 constitution. His government won a large majority in the March 1977 elections, but the opposition, the Pakistan National Alliance, charged rigging and began strikes and riots. As talks seemed close to a deal, Zia acted. Bhutto was arrested, charged with authorising the murder of a political opponent's father, and sentenced to death by the Lahore High Court in 1978. The Supreme Court upheld the sentence by four votes to three, and he was hanged on April 4, 1979 in Rawalpindi. Many observers at home and abroad called the trial flawed. Zia pushed Islamisation, introducing the Hudood Ordinances and Islamic punishments, and supported the Afghan mujahideen after the Soviet invasion of 1979, which brought American aid. He died in a plane crash near Bahawalpur on August 17, 1988.¹