PAKISTAN: Conspiracy Nipped

Premier Liaquat Ali Khan’s announcement was tense: “A conspiracy hatched by the enemies of Pakistan has just been unearthed. The aim of the conspiracy was to create commotion in the country by violent means . . . These plans, had they succeeded, would have struck at the very foundations of our national existence.”

A few hours before the Premier spoke, police had arrested 38-year-old Major General Akbar Khan, chief of general staff of Pakistan’s army, and his wife, at army headquarters in Rawalpindi. In Karachi, they arrested Brigadier M. A. Latif, commander of a brigade in Quetta, near the Afghan border. In Lahore, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, editor of the Pakistan Times, the country’s second largest English-language newspaper, was taken into custody. All were accused of trying to overthrow the government.

Leftist Faiz is best known as an Urdu poet. Both soldiers are career officers from the old Indian army. Akbar Khan enjoys an added reputation as a practical joker. Once, to amuse himself, if not his friends, he had an aide read fake news bulletins over a microphone connected to his home radio. While Akbar chuckled, his worried guests heard realistic descriptions of the death of one guest’s father, a fire which burned down another’s house, and an earthquake in an area where a third man owned property.

Akbar’s conspiracy was no joking matter. Although Premier Liaquat refused further comment, Defense Ministry officials hinted at an explanation: Faiz, who is also a leader of the pro-Communist Azad Pakistan Party, and the two officers had planned to stage a military revolt, aiming at a pro-Communist dictatorship.