Airport tower to Gen. Musharaff: U Riffraff Mushhead, Go back to India where U came from.
Gen. Musharaff to Tower from the cockpit: U towering Idiot . This is General Musharaff. I am putting down the plane now. Mid-air Drama - a Hollywood thriller
I?m Army chief ordering, let my plane land
Army alleges Sharif government tried to divert Musharraf?s fuel-short plane to India
Islamabad: It was like a Hollywood thriller ? plenty of suspense and action. Except that it was for real.
The story of the Army coup in Pakistan has all the ingredients of a hit movie.
Having decided to fire Army chief General Pervez Musharraf, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif took into
confidence ISI chief Lt Gen Khwaja Ziauddin. He decided to strike while the General was away in Sri
Lanka.
The Army got the wind of it at around 10 am. Lt Gen Mohammed Aziz, the second-in-command and a
Musharr-af loyalist, contacted his chief in Colombo and then urged the government not to carry out its
plans. Lt Gen Aziz also contacted the head of the vital Rawalpindi Corps Lt Gen Ahmed Mahmood
whose cooperation was the key to any Army action in Islamabad.
While the Army was planning its moves, the beleagured Sharif kept the impression of business-as-usual
by attending a political meeting at a village near the capital. He summoned Lt Gen Ziauddin to his house
at 3.40 pm and appointed him the new Army chief after signing the orders of Gen Musharraf?s dismissal.
While Gen Musharraf was in mid-air on his way back to Karachi, PTV made the announcement at 4 pm
that he had been dismissed. The response of the Army was swift and strong. Lt Gen Aziz called an
emergency meeting of corps commanders at the Army headquarters in Rawalpindi.
At 5.30 pm, the 111 brigade was assigned the task of securing key buildings, including the Prime
Minister?s residence where Sharif was closeted with Lt Gen Ziauddin. Truck loads of troops descended
on Sharif?s residence at around 6 pm, taking control of the building and cutting it off from the outside
world.
Simultaneously, troops moved to other crucial government installations, including the PTV and radio
buildings. The television went off the air. Some 3,000 Army officers and jawans were involved in the
operation. As the General?s flight approached Pakistani shores around 6.30 pm, the pilot was told that
he had no permission to land at Karachi or Lahore.
As the PIA plane flew over the town of Nawabshah, about 200 km north of Karachi, Gen Musharraf
entered the cockpit and asked the pilot to head back towards Karachi airport, telling him, ?I will see who
stops the plane from landing in Karachi.?
The pilot obeyed and as the plane was approaching the Karachi airport, a stern Gen Musharraf told the
control tower, ?This is the Chief of the Army Staff Gen Pervez Musharraf and I am ordering you to allow
the plane to land since it is running short of fuel.?
The control tower yielded, and the aircraft landed around 7.45 pm after a delay of one hour. An ISPR
spokesman alleged the government had made an attempt to divert the plane to India.
?When the pilot told the control tower that it was short of fuel, the civil aviation authority directed the
pilot to take it to any neighbouring country. When the pilot said the only neighbouring country was India,
he was told to take the plane there,? he said, adding the message was interrupted by the head of 5 Corps
of Karachi Lt Gen Muzaffar Usmani who swiftly took control of the Karachi control tower and the
airport.
Gen Musharraf was received at the airport by the Karachi Corps commander Lt Gen Usmani. Gen
Musharraf immediately left for the corps headquarters without meeting his family members who were at
the airport and took personal charge of the operation.
Around 6.20 pm, additional troops were sent to establish full control over the PTV building. Before they
could do so, the news of Gen Musharraf?s dismissal had been announced. Most telephone lines were
shut down.
The transmission from PTV and Radio Pakistan was restored by at 8.15 pm. Fifteen minutes later, PTV
announced that the Sharif government had been dismissed and that Gen Musharraf would address the
nation.
Gen Musharraf stayed put in Karachi and even recorded his address to the nation there. He flew to
Islamabad only in the early hours of Wednesday. By that time, Pakistani Army had taken control of the
country. Sharif was kept a helpless prisoner in his mansion. |
