Operation Fair Play: PPP observes Black Day

The PPP observed a Black Day to mark the day that Ziaul Haq overthrew the the elected government in 1977.

The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) observed a Black Day on Tuesday to mark the day that former General Ziaul Haq overthrew the the elected government in 1977.

Operation Fair Play was the code name for the coup d’état conducted at midnight on July 4, 1977 by the Pakistani military led by army chief Gen Ziaul Haq.

Near midnight on July 4, 1977 the army chief General Zia ordered the arrest of former PM Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, his ministers and other leaders of both the Pakistan Peoples Party and the Pakistan National Alliance.

In a nationally televised address, General Zia announced that the National Assembly and all provincial assemblies were dissolved, and that the Constitution of Pakistan was suspended. Bhutto was subsequently executed, in a judicial assassination, on the orders of the military junta.

The former prime minister of Pakistan, Bhutto said to journalists 10 days after the army staged a successful coup d’etat in the country on July 5, 1977 and deposed him from the office:

“I have been reading about Napoleon. I am also reading two books on Hitler. I wanted to see how Hitler controlled his generals and how I could not control mine”.