Pakistan, 1951 — military coup conspiracy
Event Summary
The Rawalpindi Conspiracy was Pakistan's first attempted coup, a plot to overthrow Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan in early 1951. It was planned by Major General Akbar Khan, the chief of general staff who had commanded Pakistani forces in the 1947 to 1948 Kashmir war under the pseudonym General Tariq, together with a group of disaffected officers and leftist civilians including the poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz and the Communist Party of Pakistan secretary general Sajjad Zaheer. The conspirators, motivated by resentment over the United Nations-brokered Kashmir ceasefire and dissatisfaction with the civilian leadership, planned to seize control in Rawalpindi on the night of 19 February 1951, arrest Liaquat Ali Khan and Governor-General Nazimuddin, and form a provisional government.
The plot was foiled when one of the officers informed the authorities. Army commander General Ayub Khan and defence secretary Iskander Mirza remained loyal, the conspirators were arrested, and Liaquat announced the foiling of the coup on 9 March 1951. The accused were tried under a special tribunal act.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
77003091951
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan survived the plot; he was assassinated later in 1951 in an unrelated attack.
Baseline coding: Plot discovered and disrupted before execution. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
CSP
Wikipedia
New York Times
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →