With a new amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan, his presidency sponsored the premierships of Zafarullah Jamali and later Shaukat Aziz and played a sustaining and pivotal role in American-led War on terror in Afghanistan.

In 2007, he attempted to seized the control of the Supreme Court by approving the relieve of the Chief Justice of Pakistan, and later suspended the writ of the constitution, which led to fall of his presidency dramatically when he resigned to avoid impeachment in 2008.

His legacy is seen as mixed; his time in power saw the emergence of a more assertive middle class, but his open disregard for civilian institutions greatly weakened democracy and the state of Pakistan.

[9] Musharraf's mother Zarin, born in the early 1920s, grew up in Lucknow and received her schooling there, after which she graduated from Indraprastha College at Delhi University, taking a bachelor's degree in English literature.

[15] With his friends, Musharraf passed the standardised, physical, psychological, and officer-training exams, he also took discussions involving socioeconomics issues; all three were interviewed by joint military officers who were designated as Commandants.

[41] In his course studies, Musharraf performed extremely in relation to his classmates, submitted his master's degree thesis, titled "Impact of Arm Race in the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent", and earned good remarks.

[42] In 1991–93, he secured a two-star promotion, elevating him to the rank of major general and held the command of 40th Division as its GOC, stationed in Okara Military District in Punjab Province.

[45] In 1993, Musharraf personally assisted Benazir Bhutto to have a secret meeting at the Pakistani embassy in Washington, D.C., with officials from the Mossad and a special envoy of Israeli premier Yitzhak Rabin.

[45] Nawaz Sharif's announcement of the promotion of General Musharraf to Chairman Joint Chiefs caused an escalation of the tensions with Admiral Bokhari: upon hearing the news, he launched a strong protest against the Prime minister.

During the end of the June DCC meeting, a tense Sharif turned to the army chief and said "you should have told me earlier", Musharraf pulled out his notebook and repeated the dates and contents of around seven briefings he had given him since the beginning of January.

[58] Military officials from Musharraf's Joint Staff Headquarters (JS HQ) met with regional corps commanders three times in late September in anticipation of a possible coup.

[88][89] Though United States president Bill Clinton pressured Musharraf to ban the alleged group behind the hijacking — Harkat-ul-Mujahideen,[90] Pakistani officials refused because of fears of reprisal from political parties such as Jamaat-e-Islami.

[85] He was formally indicted in November[93] on charges of hijacking, kidnapping, attempted murder, and treason for preventing Musharraf's flight from landing at Karachi airport on the day of the coup.

[96] Sharif was placed in Adiala Jail, infamous for hosting Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's trial, and his leading defence lawyer, Iqbal Raad, was shot dead in Karachi in mid-March.

[108] In 2010, all constitutional changes carried out by Musharraf and Aziz's policies were reverted by the 18th Amendment, which restored the powers of the Prime Minister and reduced the role of the President to levels below that of even the pre-Musharraf era.

It was such a relief to "have a coolest leader" in the office...The presidency of Pervez Musharraf helped bring the liberal forces to the national level and into prominence, for the first time in the history of Pakistan.

[15] He granted national amnesty to the political workers of the liberal parties like Muttahida Qaumi Movement and Pakistan Muslim League (Q), and supported MQM in becoming a central player in the government.

[123] Violence in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa escalated in the late 2000s amid fighting between militants and Pakistani soldiers backed by the U.S.[124] After the 2001 Gujarat earthquake, Musharraf expressed his sympathies to Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and sent a plane load of relief supplies to India.

[132] In October 2001, Musharraf authorised a sting operation led by FIA to arrest two physicists Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood and Chaudhry Abdul Majeed, because of their supposed connection with the Taliban after they secretly visited Taliban-controlled Afghanistan in 2000.

According to Zahid Malik, Musharraf and the military establishment at that time acted against Abdul Qadeer Khan in an attempt to prove the loyalty of Pakistan to the United States and Western world.

Few believed that Abdul Qadeer Khan acted alone and the affair risked gravely damaging the Armed Forces, which oversaw and controlled the nuclear weapons development and of which Musharraf was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff until his resignation from military service on 28 November 2007.

[148] Musharraf instituted prohibitions on foreign students' access to studying Islam within Pakistan, an effort that began as an outright ban but was later reduced to restrictions on obtaining visas.

[157] However, the Women's Protection bill has been criticised heavily by many for paying continued lip service and failing to address the actual problem by its roots: repealing the Hudood Ordinance.

[161] In March 2005, a couple of months after the rape of a Pakistani physician, Dr. Shazia Khalid, working on a government gas plant in the remote Balochistan province, Musharraf was criticised for pronouncing Captain Hammad, a fellow military man and the accused in the case, innocent before the judicial inquiry was complete.

[178][179][180][46] Controversies involving the atomic issues, Lal Masjid incident, the unpopular War in North-West Pakistan, the suspension of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, and widely circulated criticisms from rivals Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, had brutalised the personal image of Musharraf in public and political circles.

In July 2007, a confrontation occurred when government authorities made a decision to stop the student violence and send police officers to arrest the responsible individuals and the madrassa administration.

[198] A nine-member panel of Supreme Court judges deliberated on six petitions (including Jamaat-e-Islami's, Pakistan's largest Islamic group) for disqualification of Musharraf as a presidential candidate.

Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif announced sending a formal request or joint charge sheet that he step down, and impeach him through parliamentary process upon refusal.

[234][235] Saudi Arabia exerted its influence to attempt to prevent treason charges, under Article 6 of the constitution, from being brought against Musharraf, citing existing agreements between the states,[236][237] as well as pressuring Sharif directly.

The FIR was lodged after the son of slain hard line cleric Abdul Rahid Ghazi (who was killed during the operation) asked authorities to bring charges against Musharraf.