Pakistan’s intelligence agency ISI’s former chief Lt General (retd) Hamid Gul died on Saturday night after a brain haemorrhage. He was 79 years old.
According to reports, he was holidaying in Murree with his family he suffered from brain haemorrhage. He was shifted to the Combined Military Hospital in Murree, where doctors pronounced him dead on arrival, reported government news agency APP.
Gul’s daughter, Uzma Gul, told the news agency that his dead body was being shifted to Rawalpindi, where he will be buried.
Born in Sargodha in 1936, Gul was appointed the chief ISI in March 19889 by the then Pakistani President, General Zia-ul-Haq in March 1987. He remained ISI chief till 1989 when the US-backed Afghanistan’s war against the then Soviet Union was at the last stages.
He continued working in the spy agency in the post-stages of the Afghan war.
It was during his tenure as the ISI chief that he began to sympathise with the founders of right-wing political group, Islamic Democratic Alliance. It was the period when Pakistan was being ruled by its first ever woman Prime Minister and he the IDA was being formed against her government.
Gul, who retired from service in 1992, was considered to be a big supporter of those engaged in militancy in Kashmir. A WikiLeak document had also suggested that he had even helped Taliban in Afghanistan. Gul, however, denied these charges in many of his interviews.