New Delhi: Former Pakistan President General (retired) Pervez Musharraf, who passed away on Sunday in Dubai after a prolonged illness, survived several assassination attempts in his life. The military ruler, who assumed power through a bloodless coup in 1999, was at the helm for nine years after deposing Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
When he was at the helm, the former President had his hands in several incidents of impact, which sent reactionary ripples across the country, including but not limited to, the 2007 assassination of ex-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and the killing of former junior interior minister and Balochistan Governor Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti. Additionally, Musharraf's attempts to portray himself as a progressive leader also led to a crackdown on radical Islamist outfits in the post-9/11 years.
A cumulative result of such coercive action led, in later years, to several attempts on his life. From car bombs to shots fired at his private jet and explosive-laden trucks ramming into the President's convoy, the following described the many narrow misses on Musharraf, who eventually went into exile in Dubai after the 2008 elections in Pakistan.
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In April 2002, a remote-controlled explosive was placed at a spot in Musharraf's daily travel route, which eventually did not lead to a blast owing to a detonator issue. A court in the country convicted three Islamist militants in October 2003 of involvement in the assassination plot. All three were awarded 10 years imprisonment. The militants were identified as members of a radical group Harkat-ul-Mujahideen.
Musharraf narrowly escaped another attempt to kill him on December 14, 2003, when a bomb blew up a bridge in the Garrison city of Rawalpindi, next to the capital Islamabad, minutes after his motorcade passed it. He described in his autobiography how the blast caused his car to fly into the air. Days later on December 25, he survived a second attempt when suicide truck bombs were driven into his convoy on the same road. The blast led to the deaths of a total of 14 people. The President's car, though sustaining heavy damage, managed to get him to his residence.
A man, identified as Islam Siddiqui, was hanged in August 2005 after he was convicted of taking part in one of the two attempts. The next year, the country's top court upheld death sentences for 12 people, including both military personnel and civilians, who were involved in the incidents. On July 6, 2007, unidentified persons shot at Musharraf's aircraft while it was taking off from a military airfield located in Rawalpindi. The President did not sustain any injury, and the aircraft subsequently landed safely in Turbat.
