This is an archived blog post from The Acorn.
According to him, he was born on Aug 11th, 1943. That was all very well until the Indian government decided to issue him his birth certificate — he was born in Delhi, in pre-partition India — as a gesture of goodwill. That certificate, based on hospital and municipal records, puts his year of birth as 1942.
The birth registration record of Musharraf, who was born in Delhi, has been found by the New Delhi Municipal Corporation and the birth certificate is being prepared as asked for by the government, spokesman for the civic body Madan Thapliyal told PTI.
“We have found an entry for a male child born on August 11, 1942, identified as”son of a Mr Musharraf” and delivered at the Lala Girdharilal Maternity Hospital,” he said.
During their visit to the capital last month, Musharraf’s mother and elder brother had visited the Lala Girdharilal Maternity Hospital in Kamala Market and expressed the desire to get the birth certificates of her two sons Javed and Pervez, born in that hospital in July 1941 and August 1942 respectively. [Rediff]
In all events, the General lied about his age. This is quite common in Pakistan (and India) where additional years of government service can be had by ‘losing’ or ‘finding’ new documents or by swearing affidavits.
Whatever may be said about his newfound sincerity and genuineness of peaceful intentions, Musharraf’s record with matters relating to the truth is at best patchy. He remains guilty of terminological and numerical inexactitude.
Update: To make things murkier, according to this report, he was actually born in 1945 — that should make him two years younger than he says.
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