PAKISTAN: Pervez Musharraf, a Pakistani former minister, died on Sunday at a hospital in Dubai after an illness took him by the grit, following years in self-imposed exile.
The United Arab Emirates’ Pakistan military and the country’s mission announced Musharraf’s demise at the age of 79. Musharraf was also the former army chief pushed from power in 2008.
A lot of high-ranking officials expressed their condolences, including the Prime Minister, Shehbaz Sharif, President Arif Alvi, and Pakistan’s army chiefs, as well as navy and air chiefs. Musharraf’s body will be brought to Pakistan on Monday for burial in a special flight.
The four-star general capturing power through a bloodless coup in the year 1999 had witnessed rapid economic bloom coupled with the incorporation of socially liberal values in the conservative Muslim country.
Al Qaeda and various other militant Islamists have attempted to murder him three times, but his heavy-handed use of the military to force his dissent ultimately led to his downfall and the end of his reign.
Fawad Chaudhry, Musharraf’s aide and a leader of the ex-PM Imran Khan’s party, said, “He is called a military dictator, but there has never been a stronger democratic system than that under him,” adding that “he gave Pakistan a free media, and he stressed diversity of opinion in Pakistan.”
After the September 2001 attack, Musharraf joined the “war on terror,” a series of attacks on the United States in which Pakistan gave US forces access to ground and airspace in Afghanistan in order to hunt down the Al Qaeda militants responsible for the gruesome attack.
This policy went against the direct support that Pakistan showed for the Taliban, making Musharraf a target for the militants in Pakistan, which included him losing support among the major conservative elements in Pakistan.
Pakistan’s umbrella militant group, the Tehreek-e-Taliban, celebrated his death, saying, “This was the infamous army chief who sold off the country’s honour and respect.” A new set of attacks have been underway by this group in Pakistan recently that have warned the present military leadership against following Musharraf’s policies.
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