The dramatic developments were triggered when General Musharraf sacked Lt Gen Tariq Pervez, then Quetta corps commander, leading English daily The News reported today.

Lt Gen Pervez, brother of a cabinet minister in the Sharif government, Raja Nadir Pervez, was removed by the prime minister on the recommendation of the army chief barely five days prior to the coup.

Lt Gen Pervez immediately cut short his foreign trip and rushed back home to convince the prime minister about the "detrimental fallout" of accepting general Musharraf's recommendation in this case, the daily said quoting the two unnamed associates. The associates are accused in the plane hijacking case along with Sharif, it said.

The Pervez brothers held a secret meeting with Sharif and convinced him that "a plot was ready to throw him out of power," the two associates reportedly told the paper. It added that only former ISI director general Khwaja Ziauddin was privy to this meeting. The situation reached a point of no return when on October 9 newspapers reported that Lt Gen Pervez had been removed for holding the secret meeting with Sharif without the knowledge of the army chief. Later, Sharif was convinced by the ISI and the Intelligence Bureau also that the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) had leaked the story to newspapers about Sharif's meeting with Lt Gen Pervez. Before these developments, the same sources had apparently convinced Sharif about an impending army coup which prompted the premier to despatch his brother Shahbaz Sharif to the United States to save the situation.

Immediately after his visit, the US issued a strong statement saying it would strongly oppose any unconstitutional change in Pakistan.

The report adds that Shahbaz Sharif now suspects that a "well-hatched conspiracy" might have been woven by the vested interests to cause bad blood between his Prime Minister brother and the army headquarters. The deposed premier's colleagues also revealed that the anti-General Musharraf lobby in the government, led by Nadir Pervez, had got frustrated following Sharif's September 30 decision to confirm general Musharraf as the chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (JCSC) and extend his term for another year and a half year, the report said. Even two days before the coup, when Sharif suddenly went to UAE apparently to hold secret consultations with his close advisers, he had been warned of a coup within 48 hours by this lobby, the report said.

But it later came to be known that there was apparently no activity in the army headquarters on October 12 till Sharif took the fatal decision to sack General Musharraf. The army chief himself was out of country, his next in command, Lt Gen Muhammad Aziz was busy in a tennis game with northern corps commander and all other corps commanders were busy in their usual evening activities. There was virtually no senior officer at the army headquarters.

Sharif's father Mian Muhammad Sharif has also said a few days ago that the people whom his son had brought to the front played a major role in toppling his government and the army takeover.