7.6 KiB
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Political Figure |
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Pakistani civil servant who ran the State Bank under Bhutto and the finance ministry under Zia, chaired the Pakistani BCCI Foundation, and was president of Pakistan from 1988 to 1993. | 1915-01-15 | 2006-10-27 | Peshawar, Pakistan | 2026-09-23 | 2026-09-23 |
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Ghulam Ishaq Khan was a Pakistan civil servant who was governor of the State Bank of Pakistan under Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, minister of finance under Zia ul-Haq, and president of Pakistan from 1988 to 1993. Through the 1980s he chaired the Pakistani foundation of Agha Hasan Abedi's Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), which received the bank's Pakistani profits free of tax.123
Civil Service
He was born on January 15, 1915, in Ismail Khel, a village about eight kilometres from Bannu toward Lakki Marwat, in what became the North-West Frontier Province. His father died when he was a child. After graduating in chemistry and botany he joined the NWFP Civil Service in 1938, and in his early years served as treasury officer in Bannu, extra assistant commissioner in Abbottabad, assistant commissioner of Haripur and Nowshera, and, in the mid-1940s, bursar of Islamia College in Peshawar. He was Development Commissioner of the NWFP in the early 1950s, federal secretary of irrigation, water and power from 1954, member for finance of the Water and Power Development Authority from 1956 and its chairman from 1963, and secretary of finance and secretary of the cabinet in the second half of the 1960s.1
Bhutto and Zia
In December 1971 Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto appointed him governor of the State Bank, a post he held for slightly over three years before becoming secretary of defence in March 1975, according to his obituary in Dawn. A United Press International dispatch of 1988 described him instead as having been "deputy defense minister" under Bhutto.12
In July 1977, shortly after the chief of army staff, General Zia ul-Haq, proclaimed himself Chief Martial Law Administrator, suspended the constitution and overthrew Bhutto's government, Ishaq Khan was made secretary-general-in-chief. He then served as federal finance minister in the military government, from 1977 to 1984. In early 1985 he was elected to the Senate of Pakistan on the NWFP quota of seats reserved for technocrats, and Zia nominated him as a candidate for chairman of the Senate.12
The BCCI Foundation
The Pakistani BCCI Foundation was created "as a means of sheltering BCCI profits from taxation," according to the BCCI Kerry-Brown Senate Report, and "in 1981, it received tax-free status while Ishaq Khan was Pakistan's minister of finance." The foundation received BCCI's profits from its Pakistani operations "and then used some of those profits to finance projects the Pakistani government wanted and could not pay for itself." Among them, BCCI "provided $10 million in grants in the late 1980's to finance an officially 'private' science and technology institute named for Pakistani President Ishaq Khan, whose director, A. Qadir Khan, has been closely associated with Pakistan's efforts to build a nuclear bomb." The report stated that Ishaq Khan "had served as chairman of the BCCI Foundation throughout the 1980's, and had close ties to Abedi."3
The report recorded that "among BCCI officials, it was generally believed that if Zia had still been alive in October, 1988, he would have used his influence with the U.S. government to soften the handling of the case against BCCI in Tampa," and continued: "With Zia gone, BCCI was not left without resources in Pakistan, however. The man who became President, Ishaq Khan, had served as chairman of the BCCI Foundation."3
He established the 2.2 billion rupee Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology in Swabi, of which A.Q. Khan was project director. His long-time aide Roedad Khan said that his part in the nuclear programme had led a U.S. diplomat to call him "Mr Nuke."1
President
On August 17, 1988, the C-130 carrying Zia exploded after takeoff from Bahawalpur. As acting president, Ishaq Khan said in a national broadcast, "There is the possibility of sabotage in the crash. The aircraft exploded soon after takeoff. I have ordered an inquiry into the incident." He declared a state of emergency "with immediate effect," and the army was deployed at government installations in the capital and in Karachi. Zia had announced on July 20 that elections would be held on November 16 and declared the next day that they would be held on a non-party basis; on the day of the crash Benazir Bhutto had petitioned the Supreme Court to require elections on a party basis.2
He held the presidency for over four years. In that time he removed two elected governments, one led by Benazir Bhutto and the other by Nawaz Sharif, installing interim governments first under a deal with Sharif in 1990 and later with Bhutto in 1993. He left the President's House in 1993 under a compromise brokered by the chief of army staff, General Abdul Waheed Kakar, that also removed Sharif as prime minister. "He would never speak about those days and happenings around him as he always chose to keep memories of those times close to his heart describing them as state's secrets," said Haroon Bilour, a member of his family.1
Death
Ishaq Khan died at his residence in University Town, Peshawar, at 10:55 on the morning of October 27, 2006, at about 92, and was buried the same day in the University Town graveyard with official protocol. Those at his funeral prayers included Qazi Hussain Ahmed, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, Samiul Haq, Gohar Ayub Khan, former President Farooq Leghari, the federal ministers Ijazul Haq and Salim Saifullah Khan, and the minister of state Omer Ayub; Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz later called on the family. He left a son, Mamoon Ishaq Khan, and five daughters, of whom Samina was married to the former federal minister Anwar Saifullah and Rakhsha to Irfanullah Marwat, a provincial minister in Sindh.1
Footnotes
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Amir, Intikhab. "Ghulam Ishaq Khan passes away," Dawn, October 28, 2006. https://www.dawn.com/news/216492/ghulam-ishaq-khan-passes-away ↩︎
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Barnetson, Denholm. "President Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, U.S. Ambassador Arnold Raphel and...," United Press International, August 17, 1988. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1988/08/17/President-Mohammad-Zia-ul-Haq-US-Ambassador-Arnold-Raphel-and/3467587793600/ ↩︎
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Kerry, Senator John, and Senator Hank Brown. The BCCI Affair: A Report to the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate. December 1992, ch. 5, "BCCI's Relationship with Foreign Governments, Central Banks, and International Organizations," section "Pakistan." https://irp.fas.org/congress/1992_rpt/bcci/05foreign.htm ↩︎