THIS IS MY STORY—68
MY JOURNEY THROUGH THE ERA OF AYUB KHAN TO THE TIMES OF IMRAN KHAN.
GHULAM AKBAR….
The beginnings of a romance
The name of Naukundi remains inscribed on the plate of my memory for many reasons—among them the most important being that I was there on the night of the 6 of September 1965 when India attacked Pakistan, with the intention of capturing Lahore within hours.
But that was to be the last day or night of my stay at Naukundi. I had arrived there on the 27th of August when no one had any idea of what was in store for Pakistan in the days to come.
At Naukundi our only access to the world was a Phillips radio set that Khalu Jaan might have bought years earlier as a prized object.
The first sun of September 1965 had risen in normal way for us. But it was witnessing hundreds of miles in the east an activity of unusual nature.
It was about mid-noon when Radio Pakistan announced that Azad Kashmir forces supported by the Pak Army had crossed the River Tawi and captured Chamb. It was quite a bombshell for me. As a patriotic Pakistani, there was a great deal of joy for me in this news, but as a journalist I had a strange premonition—a kind of forewarning about something explosive happening consequentially.
That evening my mind’s romance with a man called Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was to begin.
Then Pakistan’s Foreign Minister and Secretary General of the party of Field Marshal Ayub Khan, ZAB addressed the Nation immediately after the 8 pm news bulletin.
It was a well-prepared speech. With that speech, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto catapulted himself into the horizon of national leadership.
“The struggle of the people of the occupied Kashmir for freedom is going to bear fruit. The freedom-fighters of the Indian-held JK are going to be rewarded for the blood they have shed in the cause of liberating their land from the clutches of the brutal Indian army. Our brave soldiers are going to remind India that we are worthy successors to the glorious traditions set by Salahuddin Ayubi the liberator of Jerusalem.”
