"The twenty-nine-year-old Mehtab had heard the news about the military coup while she was in the United States. In the early hours of July 5, 1977, Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, popular and charismatic, was arrested and thrown in jail. The man who had ousted Bhutto was his own army chief, General Zia ul-Haq. Zia, as he would come to be known, promised this was temporary. “My sole aim is to organize free and fair elections which would be held in October this year,” he had declared on television. “Soon after the polls, power will be transferred to the elected representatives of the people. I give a solemn assurance that I will not deviate from this schedule.” There would be no elections. In September 1978, Zia declared himself president. Bhutto was still in jail."