Ghulam Jilani Khan Lieutenant - General Ghulam Jilani Khan ( 1925 – 1999 ) , , more widely known as Ghulam Jillani , was a high - ranking general officer in the Pakistan Army who served as the fourteenth Governor of Punjab Province and eleventh Defence Secretary of Pakistan in the military government of President General Zia - ul - Haq . Jillani was a junior officer in the Indian Army and served with distinction in the Second World War , then with the Partition of India of 1947 opted for Pakistan and took a leave of absence to join the fighting in Kashmir as an irregular . He joined the Military Intelligence Corps and commanded field operations in the 1965 and 1971 wars against India . In 1971 he assumed the directorship of the Directorate - General for Inter - Services Intelligence ( " ISI " ) . After six years there , he assisted General Zia in the operation code - named " Fair Play " to remove Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto , subsequently joining Zia ' s military administration as Secretary General at the Ministry of Defence . In 1980 he was appointed martial law administrator and Governor of the Punjab Province , which he governed until 1985 . In retirement he was the principal Founder of Chand Bagh School . Early life and military career . Educated at the Doon School , Dehradun , and the Indian Military Academy , Jilani was commissioned into the Indian Army in 1944 . In 1947 , with the partition of India , he transferred to the new Pakistan Army . Between 1947 and 1948 he was granted a leave of absence to become a guerrilla fighter in Kashmir . He was not only a fierce opponent of India but also a supporter of the United States . During 1971 he was with the Pakistani forces fighting Bangladesh i independence which suffered painful defeats at the hands of the Indian Army . With the rank of Brigadier he was Chief of Staff to the Commander - in - chief of Eastern Command until the middle of 1971 , when he was promoted Major - General and posted to Pakistan ' s principal intelligence agency , the Directorate for Inter - Services Intelligence , or ISI , as Director General . From 1971 to 1978 Jilani headed the ISI , being the third man to hold the position . In that role , he served three Pakistani governments , those headed successively by Yahya Khan , Z . A . Bhutto , and Zia - ul - Haq . In 1976 , when Tikka Khan retired as Chief of Army Staff , Jilani was the fifth most senior army officer . Tikka Khan considered those in the first , second and fourth positions unsuitable to replace him , so recommended the third most senior officer , Akbar Khan , to Prime Minister and Defence Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto . In the event , Bhutto ignored this recommendation and chose instead General Zia - ul - Haq , seventh in the list of seniority . Jilani , who lacked the experience of formation command , was thus passed over , but in fact he had lobbied Bhutto to appoint Zia , and Bhutto later wrote that he had been influenced in the matter by General Jilani Khan . In April 1976 , and again in October , Jilani sent reports to Bhutto which recommended the holding of fresh elections sooner rather than later , and Bhutto agreed with this advice . The 1977 general election had been expected in the second half of the year , but on 7 January Bhutto announced that the election would be held on 7 March . When he was later awaiting execution , Bhutto hinted that he might have been trapped in a conspiracy . Public life . In October 1977 , a few months after Zia - ul - Haq ' s " Operation Fair Play " coup d ' état had removed Bhutto and his government from office , with Zia himself becoming Chief Martial Law Administrator , Jilani joined Zia ' s government as Secretary General at the Ministry of Defence . In February 1979 , he led a Military Goodwill Delegation to the People ' s Republic of China , where he had discussions with Chairman Hua Guofeng and Vice Premier Li Xiannian . Jilani remained at the Ministry of Defence until 1 May 1980 , when he was appointed as Governor of the Punjab Province , a powerful post which he retained until the end of the Military administration in December 1985 . Unlike Zia - ul - Haq , Jilani was secular in his private life . In political life , he became well known for his conviction that most of Pakistan ' s political troubles were due to feudal influences , which he was anxious to weaken . He was suspicious of most politicians from rural areas , so he attempted to encourage and promote new urban leaders . Among these was Nawaz Sharif , an industrialist to whom Jilani gave his first political appointment , as Finance Minister in the Punjab provincial government . In 1985 he nominated Sharif as Chief Minister of the Punjab , and Sharif went on to become Prime Minister of Pakistan . When the Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang visited Pakistan for talks in June 1981 it was Jillani who greeted him at Lahore airport . On 31 July 1981 an express train from Karachi to Peshawar crashed near Bahawalpur with more than thirty dead , and Jilani announced the same day that he suspected sabotage . In 1983 Jilani issued a directive which created the Marghzar College for Women of the University of Gujrat . In January 1984 , as Governor of the Punjab , Jilani was concerned by intelligence that refugees from Afghanistan were buying land in Pakistan and gave instructions to his district administrators to prevent such sales . On 30 December 1985 he stood down as Governor of the Punjab , to be succeeded by Makhdoom Muhammad Sajjad Hussain Qureshi . Retirement . In retirement , Jilani took up the cause of the proposed new independent Chand Bagh School , to be a Pakistani boarding school inspired by his own " alma mater " , the Doon School . After several years of effort , he succeeded in founding the new school , which opened at Muridke in September 1998 . Jillani occasionally wrote on military subjects , and on 5 June 1999 , not long before his death , the newspaper " Pakistan " published an article under his name which analysed the conflict in Kashmir in terms of the region ' s strategic roads . Legacy . Ghulam Jilani Khan is honoured every year at the Chand Bagh School ' s Founder ' s Day celebrations . At the ninth such occasion , on 26 February 2011 , the main speaker was Yousaf Raza Gillani , Prime Minister of Pakistan , who said Jilani ' s son Major Shaukat Jilani Khan is now the President of the Chand Bagh Foundation , while his nephew Lieutenant - General Zia Ullah Khan eventually followed him as head of the Directorate for Inter - Services Intelligence . Notes . His nephews name was Lt . GEN ( retd ) Zia Ullah Khan