Akbar Khan ( Pakistani general ) Major General Akbar Khan , DSO ( 1912 - 1993 ) also known as Mohammed Akbar Khan , was a Pakistan Army officer who is most known as the Brigadier - in - Charge in Kashmir on the Pakistan side in Indo - Pakistani War of 1947 . He also served as a commander of the Pakistan Army ' s division to stop the first Baloch insurgency of 1948 . Khan had also served as appointed " Chief of National Security " under prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto . Under his guidance , the Army had quelled the Balochi Insurgency during the early and mid - 1970s . In spite of his engaging military career , Khan is mostly known in Pakistan as the main conspirator of the first but failed coup attempt of 1951 , which came to be known as the " Rawalpindi Conspiracy " . Early life and the army . Akbar Khan was born in 1912 in a fairly affluent Pashtun family . He was the son of Muhammad Akram Khan . He belonged to a village named Utmanzai ( Parichkhail Family ) in the district of Charsadda ( the same place where the companion of Gandhi , Khan Abdul Ghafar Khan was born ) . He received his education at Islamia College , Peshawar , and took a commission into the British Army . After officer training at Sandhurst Military Academy , he joined The Hampshire Regiment in 1934 , and later transferred to the 13th Frontier Force Rifles , part of the British Indian Army . Waziristan War of 1937 and World War II . He took part in operations in Waziristan war during 1937 – 1938 . During World War II he served in the 100th Indian Infantry Brigade of the 20th Indian Division during active combat operations against the Imperial Japanese Army in Burma . He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for conspicuous gallantry and leadership displayed during the Battle of Kwanlan Ywathit whilst serving in the 14th Battalion of the Frontier Force Rifles . Indo - Pakistan War 1947 - 1948 . At the time of Independence , Akbar Khan was a member of the sub - committee involved in partitioning the armed forces between India and Pakistan . Akbar Khan ' s own 1975 book * Raiders in Kashmir * ( National Book Foundation , Pakistan ) gives a thorough account of his role in the Pakistani attack on Hari Singh ' s J & K . His principal role was in arranging guns and devising strategies for war and revolt by Sardar Ibrahim ' s branch of the Muslim Conference against Hari Singh with the help of the Pakistan Army . He makes clear he was ignorant of the Pashtun laskars that came to be organised by Khurshid Anwar that invaded on 22 October . Less than two months after Independence , fighting started in Kashmir , the Indian Army landed in Srinagar and confronted the Pathan tribesmen who were advancing towards the valley . Akbar Khan , who was then a Brigadier , assumed command of the regulars and irregulars fighting against the Indian forces and was given the code name " General Tariq " . Change of heart . It was during this period that he first became dissatisfied with the moral and material support being given to the Pakistani fighters by Liaquat Ali Khan ' s government . He also had a grudge against General Douglas David Gracey , then Commander - in - Chief of the Pakistan Army , who had put a brake on the deeper involvement of the army on the Kashmir front . Akbar Khan was of the opinion – rightly or wrongly – that acceptance of the ceasefire in Kashmir when he was only four hours away from capturing Srinagar , was a mistake and the armed operation against the Indian Army should have been continued . The constraints under which Akbar Khan had to conduct the battle in Kashmir made him a very frustrated and dissatisfied person . By nature he was extremely brave and , in fact , rather rash . He was also very ambitious . All these qualities and tendencies combined to propel him towards conjuring up a plan to remove the Liaquat government by means of a coup d ' état . The conspiracy begins . In sheer frustration , Akbar Khan started discourses with other armed forces officers to form a group to stage a military coup . The government also became suspicious of his moves . Akbar Khan ' s wife , Begum Nasim ( daughter of the famous Muslim League woman politician Begum Jahanara Shahnawaz ) , was quite indiscreet in her conversation , criticizing the Government and its policies before all and sundry , as did Akbar Khan himself , to some extent . He thus came under the watch of the intelligence agencies . Brigadier Akbar was now due for promotion on the basis of his seniority . In December , 1950 , he was promoted to Major General and posted as Chief of General Staff in GHQ . In his book " Friends , Not Masters " , General Ayub Khan wrote that he ( Ayub ) decided to post Akbar in the GHQ so that , firstly Akbar should not have direct command over troops like a Division Commander , and secondly because he could be kept under close watch by General Ayub Khan himself . Meanwhile , Akbar Khan continued his surreptitious meetings and discussions with various army officers and later with the civilians too . The Communist Party connection . In those days the Communist Party of Pakistan was under tremendous pressure from Liaquat Ali Khan ' s government . It was not being allowed to function openly as a political party . Arrest warrants had been issued for all the top leaders of the party — all the members of the party ' s central committee had gone underground . Ordinary workers and even sympathizers were often arrested , beaten , sent to the fearful Lahore Fort for interrogation and threatened with dire consequences if they did not break all connections with the CP . This was the climate of oppression of the left at that time . Akbar Khan ' s wife Nasim had vast connections with political families and political personalities such as Faiz Ahmed Faiz , who was a committed sympathizer of the party . All these political connections brought together the Chief of General Staff and the CP leadership . Apparently the general had promised the CP leadership that if he came to power he would stop the continuous governmental assault on the leftists ; the CP would be allowed to function as a legitimate political party like any other party and to take part in the elections which General Akbar promised to hold a few months after consolidating his power . In return the CP and its affiliated trade unions , kissan ( peasant ) committees , etc . , would welcome the military government . The Pakistan Times , one of the leading newspapers of that period , whose editor was Faiz Ahmed Faiz , would lend editorial support to General Akbar ' s new dispensation . The day and co - conspirators . On 23 February 1951 , a meeting was held at Major General Akbar Khan ' s house in which besides a number of military officers , three civilians were also present , namely Faiz Ahmed Faiz , Syed Sajjad Zaheer ( General Secretary of the CP ) and Mohammed Hussain Ata . In this meeting were also present Lt - Colonel Siddique Raja MC , and Major Mohammed Yousuf Sethi both of whom later obtained state pardon and became approvers in the case against the others . The Chief of General Staff Akbar Khan presented his plan in this meeting which was to arrest the Governor - General Khawaja Nazimuddin and the Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan , both of whom were expected to be in Rawalpindi after a week ( Karachi being the capital at that time ) . The Governor - General was to be forced to announce the dismissal of the Liaquat Government and the formation of an interim government presumably under General Akbar Khan . General elections under the army ' s supervision were also promised but no timeframe was given . The general also spoke about Kashmir , land reforms , eradication of corruption and nepotism and some such other topic . The probable leak . Among General Akbar ' s confidants was one Askar Ali Shah , a police officer who was although not present at the meeting of 23 February 1951 , had been informed beforehand by the general that he was going to convene such a meeting . This police officer had been a confidant of the general for over two years ( or more ) and had never leaked out any secret . But this time he got cold feet and blurted out to his IG Police , who in turn informed the Governor NWFP about the meeting . The governor wasted no time in contacting the Prime Minister . The conspiracy foiled . The first four persons to be arrested were the Chief of the General Staff Major General Akbar Khan , the Brigade Commander of Quetta , Brigadier M . A . Latif Khan , Faiz Ahmed Faiz and Akbar ' s wife Nasim . Later some other people were also picked up . But one of the accused , Mohammed Hussain Ata , who was underground eluded arrest for a long time . He was eventually arrested in East Pakistan about a month after the trial proceedings had commenced . Most of the accused were originally kept in various Lahore jails and later shifted to Hyderabad jail where a special compound inside the jail had been renovated and turned into the court premises . A special tribunal had been formed by the government to hear the case . The tribunal consisted of Justice Sir Abdul Rahman of the federal court , Justice Mohammed Sharif of the Punjab High Court and Justice Amir - ud - Din of the Dacca High Court . The trial . The trial began on 15 June 1951 at 8 . 00 a . m . The prosecution was led by the formidable A . K . Brohi - this was one of his earlier cases . Later he was to achieve great fame and notoriety as a legal adviser of dictators and authoritarians . The incomparable Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy appeared on behalf of Brigadier Latif and Z . H . Lari on behalf of General Akbar . Other famous practitioners who appeared for the defence were Malik Faiz Mohammed , Khawaja Abdul Rahim , Sahibzada Nawazish Ali and Qazi Aslam . Gradually as the case proceeded and continued month after month , many of the counsel departed due to the inability of their clients to pay them . But credit goes to H . S . Suhrawardy who fought till the very end even when his client had stopped paying him anything more . The basic charge against all the accused was one of " Conspiracy to wage war against the King " . " A careful scrutiny of the first charge " said the judgement , " shows that it relates to a conspiracy alleged by prosecution to have come into being for overthrowing the Government established by law in Pakistan by means of criminal force or show of criminal force . " Other allegations , though punishable offences in themselves , were " either the consequences of this conspiracy or merely means to achieve the object for which it was stated to have been entered into . " The judgement was , therefore , directed mainly to examine whether the evidence produced by the prosecution was sufficient to establish " ( i ) the existence of conspiracy ; and if that is found established , ( ii ) who are proved to have been parties to it ? " The evidence led by the prosecution to prove its case was both documentary and oral . The latter was of " persons , who , without being either parties or willing parties to it , either deposed to the existence of the conspiracy or stated facts which might lead a court to draw a conclusion in favour of its existence ; and ( of ) persons who were either , on their own statements , or on account of admissions of facts made by them , or due to existence of other reasonable grounds , held to be willing parties to the conspiracy . " The case as presented by the prosecution , relied basically on the evidence of the two approvers , and other witnesses who gave circumstantial evidence . It was not a false case at all . In general the bulk of the evidence was true . But there was a major falsehood which negated all the claims of the state of presenting a truthful case before the tribunal . The prosecution induced the approvers to state that at the end of the crucial meeting of 23 February 1951 the people present had agreed to overthrow the government . They had to tell this lie because otherwise the allegation of conspiracy would have fallen flat . According to the penal code a conspiracy is only established ' when two or more persons agree to commit an illegal act or a legal act by illegal means ' . If there is no agreement there is no conspiracy under the law . The Conspirators claimed that after eight long hours of discussion , of arguments and counter - arguments , of high tension and near nervous breakdown , the group of persons assembled in Akbar Khan ' s house that day had agreed not to take any steps in pursuance of the plan presented by the Chief of General Staff . There was no agreement , and therefore no conspiracy ! General Akbar could have very well been punished under the Army Act for even presenting such a plan and for trying to subvert the loyalty of others . In jail the military officers and the intellectual civilians managed to get along together reasonably well , in spite of wide differences in ideology and thinking between some individuals . Actually , General Akbar had somehow managed to gather quite a diverse bunch of characters . There were Major General Nazir Ahmad , who was an Ahmadi ; Air Commodore Mohammad Khan Janjua was a Sunni but with no religious ideology ; Major Hasan Khan was a Shia ; Brigadier Latif was into the Deobandi ideology and read a lot of religious books ; Brigadier Sadiq , Lt - Col Ziauddin and Captain Khizar Hayat had faith in pir s and murshid s ; Lt - Col Niaz Mohammad Arbab was a good - natured person , belonging to an affluent and influential Arbab family of Tekhal Bala , near Peshawar . He was totally uncommitted ideologically , so much so that much later he became a minister in General Muhammad Zia - ul - Haq ' s government . Syed Sajjad Zaheer , Mohammed Hussain Ata and Faiz Ahmed Faiz were communists of varying degree . So was Major Ishaq Mohammed , but at that time he was still a beginner . Later , of course , Major Ishaq became a symbol of militant left - wing politics in Pakistan . He was a fearless person and used to argue with vehemence even with the judges of the Tribunal . After an exchange of hot words , Justice Sir Abdul Rahman thundered : " I will set you right " , to which Ishaq boldly replied : " Go ahead , my Lord ! " The Justice could then only mutter , " I pity you " . Ishaq and Ata were both hot - tempered and indulged in blistering polemics when discussing politics in jail . The two coolest customers in that circle were the senior members of the group , Syed Sajjad Zaheer and Faiz Ahmed Faiz . The aftermath . Of the fifteen , the only woman , Begum Nasim , was acquitted , while Major General Nazir Ahmad was dismissed from service and sentenced till the rising of the court . All the others received prison sentences ranging from a minimum of four years ( civilians and junior officers ) to a maximum of 12 years for Major General Akbar Khan . In the words of the principal accused , Akbar Khan , it was General Ayub Khan ( the Army C - in - C ) who was the choreographer of this comic strip ( conspiracy case ) and who apparently had feared that Akbar Khan had about two divisions at his disposal , to support him . His ordeal after his arrest is best described in his own words : Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan himself made the announcement from Lahore about the conspiracy which was generally regarded as treason and the conspiracy came to be known as " The Rawalpindi Conspiracy " . The UK High Commissioner in his 3rd report to his Government on the Rawalpindi Conspiracy ending 17 March 1951 on the question of evidence against the conspirators , stated that " General Akbar Khan was a dangerous man , under the influence of an ambitious wife , and that he had been regarded as very anti - Commonwealth before he went to the United Kingdom last year to attend the Joint Services Staff College . According to Gracey the Defence Secretary Iskander Mirza wished Akbar to go on to the Imperial Defence College to " complete his education " . The impression was that on his return , he would be less anti - British , and it was felt that he might be sobered up by being given a responsible job under the eye of the Commander - in - Chief at GHQ . General Gracey also told Colonel Franklin that he had informed the Chief of the Imperial Staff of Akbar ' s tendencies before he had left for the course . . . According to an informant . . . the police have been investigating the activities of Akbar and his wife for the last two years , and General Gracey also maintains that these two , and certain of his friends , had been known as the " Young Turk Party " . In spite of all this those in charge were , last December , quite happy to appoint the General to a key post in the Pakistan Army " . Akbar Khan was also one of three generals ( the others being Lt . Gen . S . G . M . Pirzada and Tikka Khan ) who met with Pakistani President Yahya Khan on 20 February 1971 to plan " Operation Searchlight " ; he was appointed Chief of National Security in December , 1971 by Pakistan ' s new Prime Minister , Zulfikar Ali Bhutto . Muhammad Akbar Khan died in 1993 at the age of 81 in Karachi . He was buried in Defense Military graveyard Karachi .