Former military dictator Ziaul Haq poses with his father for a photograph taken likely in 1929, when he was five years old.
Zia was the second child and oldest son of Muhammad Akbar, a staff clerk in the India Command of the British Armed Forces. He spent his childhood in Simla, the summer station for some elements of the army headquarters at Delhi.
An alumnus of Government High School Simla, Zia was "a bugler's son, a child of the British Army, and, in his manner, British through and through", American journalist George Crile said in his famous book Charlie Wilson's War.
Zia went on to St Stephen's College in Delhi for a Bachelor's degree in History. He joined the British Indian Army shortly before graduating in 1943, and served in a cavalry regiment in World War II. After Independence, he joined the Pakistan Army as a major.
Zia was the second child and oldest son of Muhammad Akbar, a staff clerk in the India Command of the British Armed Forces. He spent his childhood in Simla, the summer station for some elements of the army headquarters at Delhi.
An alumnus of Government High School Simla, Zia was "a bugler's son, a child of the British Army, and, in his manner, British through and through", American journalist George Crile said in his famous book Charlie Wilson's War.
Zia went on to St Stephen's College in Delhi for a Bachelor's degree in History. He joined the British Indian Army shortly before graduating in 1943, and served in a cavalry regiment in World War II. After Independence, he joined the Pakistan Army as a major.