Former Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf, the last Pakistani military dictator and the architect of the Kargil war, died in a Dubai hospital on Sunday after a long illness. He was 79.
He was living in self-imposed exile in Dubai.
The former President of Pakistan was diagnosed with amyloidosis, a rare disease and suffering from several health-related complications.
The controversial military dictator was born on August 11 in 1943 in Delhi. His family migrated to Karachi following the partition, where he attended Military School.
Musharraf fought against India as the Company commander of a Special Services Group in the 1971 war. He also took part in the 1965 war.
Musharraf, took over Pakistan’s reins in a coup on October 12, 1999 unseating then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif after the latter refused to allow a commercial plane carrying the four-star general to land in Karachi. Musharraf was at the helm of Pakistan from 1999 to 2008.
His tenure carried the taint of various controversies and misadventures. Musharraf has left a deeply chequered legacy with accusations of human right abuses and charges of assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007 made against him.
In the Indian context, he remains a controversial figure for his role in the Kargil War of 1999. As the chief of the Pakistan Army, Musharraf planned and executed the attack by sending Pakistani intruders into India. However, it resulted in a military embarrassment for him as he misjudged India’s strength. India put up a spirited fight defeating the Pakistani army after a three-month-long war.
The conflict resulted in complete breakdown of the Indo-Pak relations. The Indian government back then led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee felt betrayed by Pakistan as the attack came just months after the Prime Ministers of both the countries inked a landmark bilateral peace declaration called Lahore declaration in February 1999.
Musharraf was forced to resign from the post of President in 2008. He was indicted for suspending Pakistan’s constitution and a special court in the country awarded his death sentence in 2019.
General Musharraf was declared a fugitive in the assassination case of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto as well as the Red Mosque cleric killing incident. He escaped from the country of the charges brought against him.
Earlier last year, rumours of his death appeared when he was hospitalized for his health complications.