The 58th death anniversary of Pakistan' first Prime Minister Nawazada Liaquat Ali Khan was observed on Friday. Liaquat Ali was born on October 1, 1896 in India and assassinated on October 16, 1951 in Rawalpindi. In 1921, he obtained a degree in Law from Oxford and was called to Bar at Inner Temple in 1922.
After independence, Quaid-i-Azam and Muslim League appointed Liaquat Ali to be the head of Pakistan government. Being the first Prime Minister of Pakistan, he had to deal with a number of difficulties the country was facing in its early days. Liaquat Ali Khan helped Quaid-i-Azam in solving the riot and refugee problem and setting up an effective administrative system for the country.
After the death of Quaid-i-Azam, he tried to fill the vacuum created by the departure of the Father of the Nation. Under his premiership, Pakistan took its first steps in the field of constitution making, as well as foreign policy.
He presented the Objectives Resolution in the Legislative Assembly. The house passed it on March 12, 1949. Under his leadership a team also drafted the first report of the Basic Principle Committee. His efforts in signing the Liaquat-Nehru pact pertaining to the minority issue in 1950 reduced tensions between India and Pakistan.
In May 1951, he visited the United States and set the course of Pakistan's foreign policy towards closer ties with the West. On October 16, 1951, Liaquat Ali Khan was assassinated. He had been scheduled to make an important announcement in a public meeting at Municipal Park, (Now Liaquat Bagh) Rawalpindi.
The security forces immediately shot the assassin, who was later identified as Said Akbar. Killing the assassin erased all clues to the identity of the real culprit behind the murder. He was officially given the title of Shaheed-i-Millat, but the question of who was behind his murder is yet to be answered.
Comments
Comments are closed.