Yahya Khan, Pakistan general and politician, 3rd President of Pakistan (d. 1980)
Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan (Urdu: آغا محمد یحییٰ خان; 4 February 1917 – 10 August 1980), commonly known as Yahya Khan, was a Pakistani general who served as the third president of Pakistan from 25 March 1969 until December 1971.Having participated in the Mediterranean theatre of World War II on behalf of Great Britain's British Indian Army, he opted for Pakistani citizenship and joined its military after the United Kingdom partitioned India in 1947, and helped in executing the covert infiltration in Indian Kashmir that sparked the war with India in 1965. After being controversially appointed to assume the army command in 1966, Yahya Khan took over the presidency who was not able to deal with the 1969 uprising in East Pakistan, forced to resign by protests and offered him the office. Yahya Khan subsequently enforced martial law by suspending the constitution. Holding the nation's first nationwide elections in 1970, 23 years after independence, he delayed the power transition to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman from East Pakistan, which further inflamed the civil violent unrest in the East, and authorised the East Pakistani authorities to begin Operation Searchlight. Which led to the Bangladesh Liberation War and the creation of Bangladesh. Along with Tikka Khan, he is considered a chief architect of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.Pakistan suffered a decisive defeat in the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, resulting in the dissolution of the Eastern Command of the Pakistan Army and the secession of East Pakistan as Bangladesh – thus Yahya Khan's rule is widely regarded as a leading cause of the break-up of Pakistan. Following these events, he turned over the leadership of the country to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the leading politician from West Pakistan, and resigned from the command of the military in disgrace, both on 20 December 1971. He was then stripped of his service honours and put under house surveillance for most of the 1970s.After being released from these restrictions in 1977, he died in Rawalpindi in 1980. He is viewed largely negatively by Pakistani historians and is considered among the least successful of the country's leaders.