THIS IS MY STORY—56
MY JOURNEY THROUGH THE ERA OF AYUB KHAN TO THE TIMES OF IMRAN KHAN.
GHULAM AKBAR…..
ZAB Was In The News Already
My working hours at that period of my life use to be very long. I was in the office maximum by ten in the morning. And used to go home at one at night after the last copy was handed over to the press. I hardly had an opportunity to realize that I had become a father. My son Inam was about six months at that time. My only time to be with him used to be Sunday mornings.
That night I remember ZAB was in the news— not as Foreign Minister of the country but as Secretary General of the Convention Muslim League.
Bhutto was a trusted political commander of the Field Marshal Ayub Khan. He had worked hard to win the confidence of his boss. In those days I regarded him just as one of the Courtiers of the King.
He surely had planned his rise quite meticulously. The trust of his first boss —Iskandar Mirza — he had won with unconcealed sycophancy. In one of his letters to President Mirza as early as early as 30th April 1958, he had written: “I regard you even higher than Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah.” This letter was to become public property in the Zia years.
The trust of the Field Marshal had been won by him exactly the same way. I remember his statement that day:
“A new era of great prosperity and great hopes awaits Pakistan under the President’s leadership.”
It was the headline that night.
