Gen Hamid Gul buried in army graveyard

RAWALPINDI: Former DG Inter-Services Intelligence Lt. Gen. (retd) Hamid Gul was laid to rest in the Army Graveyard here on Sunday with full military honours.
Gen Gul, 80, died at the Combined Military Hospital (CMH), Murree, on Saturday evening where he was rushed after a brain hemorrhage. His daughter Uzma Gul confirmed his death to the media.
The Namaz-e-Janaza was offered at the Race Course Ground, which was attended by thousands of people. The coffin was wrapped in the national flag.
A large number of people including serving and retired army generals and Chief of the Army Staff General Raheel Sharif attended the funeral prayers. There were strict security arrangements at and around the Race Course.
Gul was a retired high-ranking general in the Pakistan Army, and a former spymaster famous for serving as the DG Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) between 1987 and 1989.
He was born to Muhammad Khan on November 20, 1936, in Sargodha district of Punjab in what was then the British India.
He got his early education from a school in his village. He briefly got admission in the Government College Lahore, before reporting to the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul, Abbottabad.
His family, originally from Swat, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, migrated to Lahore and after a few years they settled in Sargodha. Gul belongs to the Mohmand tribe of Pashtuns.
Hamid Gul was commissioned in the Pakistan Army in October 1956 with the 18th PMA Long Course in the 19th Lancers Regiment of the armoured corps. He was a squadron commander during the 1965 war with India.
He attended the Command and Staff College, Quetta, in 1968-69. During 1972-1976, Gul directly served under General Muhammad Ziaul Haq as a battalion commander, and then as Staff Colonel when General Zia was the GOC, 1st Armoured Division, and Commander, II Corps, at Multan.
Thus Gul had already cemented his ties with General Zia by serving under him when both were officers in the armoured regiments of the II Corps.
Gul was promoted to brigadier in 1978 and steadily rose to be the Martial Law Administrator of Bahawalpur and then the commander of the 1st Armoured Division, Multan, in 1982, his appointments expressly wished by Zia himself.