Asghar Khan's Letter to the Officers of Defence Services

Since long, Asghar Khan is blamed for writing a letter to the officers of defence services of Pakistan, and inviting army to impose martial law in Pakistan. Here is the text available in Kausar Niazi's book "Last Days of Premier Bhutto". On reading this letter one concludes that Asghar Khan never invited Pak Army to impose martial law in the country; on the contrary he only asked army officers to perform their duties according to the constitution and the law of the land. (The text of the letter is not complete; I am reproducing it as per I found it in Kausar Niazi's book):

"I am addressing this message to the Chief of Staff and the Officers Defence Services of Pakistan.
It is your duty to defend the territorial integrity of Pakistan and to obey all lawful commands of superior officers placed over you. To differentiate between a ‘lawful’ and an ‘unlawful’ command is the duty of every officer. Every one of you must ask your self whether what the army is doing today is ‘lawful’ activity and if your conscience tells you that it is not and you still carry it out, you would appear to lack moral fibre and would be guilty of a grave crime against your country and your people.
You should by now have realised that military action to East Pakistan was a conspiracy in which the present Prime Minister played a Machiavellian role. You know the circumstance in which military action in Balochistan was engineered and how completely unnecessary this action has been. You are also probably aware of the utterly unnecessary military action taken last year in DIR in the North West Frontier Province. If you have any interest in national affairs you must also be aware that during the election campaign the nation expressed its powerful disapproval of the present regime. Following the People’s reaction of the Government, you should have been surprised at the election result in which the ‘Pakistan National Alliance’..."

This letter shows that the notion that Asghar Khan invited imposition of martial law through this letter is a mere propaganda of PPP and the journalists on the payroll of PPP.

Actually, this advice of Asghar Khan was based on those principles, which were practiced by him in his own professional carrier. In 1942, during serving in Royal Indian Air Force, he refused to carry out an illegal order of a General. In a "Dunya TV" programme "Dunya Today" (15 February 2010) Asghar Khan himself related the account of this incident in these words:

“In 1942 when I was in air force, and I was about 20 or 21. I was ordered to fire machine gun rounds on a caravan of Hurs. At that time I was in Hyderabad. I refused. I looked at the caravan (from my aeroplane); there were women and children in it. I said, I would not kill them. It was not my job. I refused. The British General, who was also the martial law administrator, was present there. He personally ordered me. I replied that I could not do it. He said that you would be court marshalled. I replied okay, go ahead." (Translated from Urdu)