New Delhi: Insisting that he was kept in the dark over the Army's Kargil aggression, former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has said the then Army Chief Gen Pervez Musharraf and two other top military commanders toppled his government in October 1999 as they feared their court martial for planning and executing it.

Currently in exile in Saudi Arabia, Sharif said Musharraf, by launching the military operation, "sabotaged" the peace process initiated in Lahore in February 1999 between himself and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee under which the latter had "agreed" to "try and resolve the (Kashmir) matter by 1999".

He also lamented that Vajpayee had started talks with the Pakistan Government headed by a "military dictator" and suggests that India should have "waited for a time when a democratic set-up came back" in Islamabad.

"Initially, when the scuffle had started, Musharraf said it was the mujahideen that was fighting in Kashmir, I thought since mujahideen keep fighting, therefore, it is not a new phenomenon," Sharif said in an interview to 'India Today' magazine in its latest edition.

He revealed that "later, I got a call from Vajpayee saab, saying 'Nawaz saab, ye kya ho raha hai (Mr Nawaz, what is happening)? Your Army is attacking our Army. They are fighting our Army. I said there was no Pakistan Army fighting against his Army. I suppose I should have known about all this. But frankly, I hadn't been briefed."