Pakistan Affairs MCQs – Page 16 (Q151-160)

General Zia-ul-Haq died in a plane crash near Bahawalpur on 17 August 1988, when his C-130 aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff from a military airbase there. The crash also killed several top generals, US Ambassador Arnold Raphel, and the US military attache, fuelling decades of conspiracy theories about sabotage that have never been conclusively resolved. Zia had ruled Pakistan for over eleven years after seizing power in a 1977 coup against Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, pursuing a sweeping programme of Islamisation. His death paved the way for the 1988 general elections that returned Benazir Bhutto to power as Prime Minister.

Zia-ul-Haq's fatal plane crash occurred in 1988, specifically on 17 August, near Bahawalpur in Punjab. The Pakistan Air Force C-130 Hercules he was travelling in disintegrated in mid-air shortly after departure, killing all on board, including several senior military officers and the US Ambassador Arnold Raphel. The cause was never officially determined, with theories ranging from mechanical failure and sabotage to poisoning by mango crates loaded onto the plane. His sudden death ended eleven years of military rule and led to the restoration of civilian democracy through elections held later that same year under caretaker President Ghulam Ishaq Khan.

Benazir Bhutto became Prime Minister of Pakistan for the first time in December 1988, following general elections held after General Zia-ul-Haq's death that August, making her the first woman to lead a Muslim-majority nation's government. She led the Pakistan Peoples Party, founded by her father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who had been executed by the Zia regime in 1979. Her first government was dismissed in August 1990 by President Ghulam Ishaq Khan on corruption charges, using presidential powers under the Eighth Amendment. She returned for a second term from 1993 to 1996, before being assassinated in Rawalpindi in December 2007.

Nawaz Sharif became Prime Minister of Pakistan for the first time in November 1990, after his Islami Jamhoori Ittehad alliance won general elections following the dismissal of Benazir Bhutto's first government. A Punjab-based industrialist turned politician, he had earlier served as Chief Minister of Punjab under General Zia-ul-Haq's patronage. His first term was cut short in 1993 when President Ghulam Ishaq Khan dismissed his government, though the Supreme Court briefly reinstated it before a compromise forced both leaders to resign. Sharif went on to serve two further terms, in 1997-1999 and 2013-2017, becoming Pakistan's only politician to hold the premiership three times.

Pakistan conducted its nuclear tests at the Chagai Hills in Balochistan in May 1998, detonating five devices on 28 May, codenamed Chagai-I, followed by a sixth test days later at nearby Kharan. The tests came just weeks after India's own nuclear tests, making Pakistan the world's seventh declared nuclear power and the first Muslim-majority country to achieve this status. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's government ordered the tests despite international pressure and resulting sanctions, and 28 May is now commemorated annually as Youm-e-Takbir. Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan is widely credited as the architect of the uranium enrichment programme that made the tests possible.

General Pervez Musharraf seized power in a bloodless military coup on 12 October 1999, overthrowing Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's government after Sharif attempted to dismiss him as army chief while he was returning from a trip abroad. Musharraf's plane was initially denied landing clearance in Karachi, prompting the army to take control of the airport and key state institutions before he assumed power. He ruled as Chief Executive before becoming President in 2001, and later held a controversial referendum in 2002 to extend his presidency. He resigned in 2008 under threat of impeachment, following the restoration of civilian democracy after that year's general elections.

The Kargil conflict between Pakistan and India took place in 1999, fought in the Kargil district of Indian-administered Kashmir after Pakistani-backed forces infiltrated and occupied high-altitude positions across the Line of Control. The fighting, lasting from May to July, marked the first open military conflict between the two countries after both had become declared nuclear powers the previous year, raising serious international alarm. India eventually recaptured most of the strategic heights, and US pressure led to Pakistani withdrawal following talks between Nawaz Sharif and Bill Clinton in Washington. The episode significantly damaged relations between Sharif and army chief Pervez Musharraf, contributing to the coup that removed Sharif from power later that same year.

The 18th Constitutional Amendment was passed in April 2010, under the coalition government led by the Pakistan Peoples Party and President Asif Ali Zardari, marking one of the most significant reworkings of the 1973 Constitution. It devolved substantial powers from the federal government to the provinces, abolished the concurrent legislative list, and renamed the North-West Frontier Province as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The amendment also stripped the president of the power to dissolve the National Assembly unilaterally, reversing changes made by earlier military rulers, and restored the parliamentary character of the constitution. It is widely regarded as a landmark step toward provincial autonomy and the strengthening of federal democracy in Pakistan.

The 18th Amendment, passed in 2010, renamed the North-West Frontier Province as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, formally recognising the province's predominantly Pashtun identity after decades of debate over the name. The change was a long-standing demand of Pashtun nationalist parties such as the Awami National Party, which had campaigned for a name reflecting ethnic rather than purely geographic identity. The amendment also devolved wide-ranging powers to all four provinces and abolished the concurrent legislative list shared between federal and provincial governments. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa later expanded further in 2018 when the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) were merged into the province.

Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in December 2007, on the 27th of that month, while leaving a campaign rally in Rawalpindi ahead of the general elections scheduled for January 2008. She had returned to Pakistan from exile just months earlier, in October 2007, following a power-sharing arrangement negotiated with President Pervez Musharraf under the National Reconciliation Ordinance. Her killing, attributed to a suicide bomb and gunfire, has never been fully resolved, though Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud was widely blamed. Her assassination shocked the nation and led to a sympathy vote that helped her Pakistan Peoples Party, then led by her widower Asif Ali Zardari, win the subsequent elections.