On October 16, 1951, the Liaquat Ali Khan motorcade moved towards the Rawalpindi Chaklala Airbase. He arrived at the Air Base in the Governor General’s Aircraft ‘Viking’ at 11:30 a.m. He was the first prime minister of Pakistan. He also held the portfolio of the defence minister and minister of Commonwealth and Kashmir affairs.
The Pakistan Muslim League had organised a public meeting at Rawalpindi. A massive crowd of one lakh people had gathered around to hear their prime minister.
The same morning, he had shared with his wife that he was going to make the greatest speech of his life. “What will it be about?” Begam Liaquat Ali asked him. “It would be a policy-making speech,” replied the Premier. He was certainly going to give a surprise to the nation.
Liaquat arrived at the venue at 3.45 am. Thousands of supporters began to shout slogans, ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ and ‘Liaquat Ali Khan Zindabad’. The dais from where he was to address the nation was constructed according to his personal instructions. He had expressly desired that he alone was to occupy the chair on the dais and that nobody else should have any seat with him. He had further insisted that there was not to be any canopy over it.
This desire of the Premier was in response to the many letters which he had received from his admirers and fans who wanted to have a full view of him. So, a microphone and one chair along with a table had been placed on the dais which was about four and a half feet high.
The president of Rawalpindi Muslim League, under whose auspices the meeting was being held, formally opened the meeting with a recitation from the Koran. This was followed by a welcome address.
Then, it was Liaquat’s turn to speak. He rose from his chair, walked towards the mike and said, “Baradran-i-Millat (Dear Brothers)” when the sound of two shots rent the air. The people saw the Prime Minister staggering and falling on his back. There was a lull of a few seconds that was broken by the sound of a third shot. The Prime Minister had been shot.
Many in the crowd started crying and weeping, saying, “Quaid-i-Millat Mara Gaya” (The leader of the Nation has been killed). Liaquats’s political secretary Nawab Siddiq Ali Khan, James Hardy, the Deputy Commissioner of Rawalpindi and some local Muslim League leaders rushed to the spot to pick him up.
He was immediately transferred to the Combined Military Hospital in the car of minister Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani . In the hospital, the Premier was attended to by Dr. Col. Mian and Dr. Col. Sarwar who attempted to remove the bullets but the Prime Minister had already succumbed to his injuries.
A crowd of people were lamenting and praying aloud. They stood outside the hospital anxiously awaiting the news. A little later Gurmani came out of the hospital and waved his hands to the crowd in a consoling gesture.
He refused to say anything as also the operating surgeon Dr. Col. Mian who, on coming out, told the crowd, ‘My lips are sealed’. Liaquat Ali Khan, the man who was destined to change the destiny of Pakistan with progressive policies expired at 4:50 p m.
BACKGROUND
According to an American intelligence report, the assassin Syed Akbar was the member of the Khaksars, a fanatical, right-wing, extremist religious sect of Islam. The group had been active in the Punjab and has expressed its dissatisfaction with “Liaquat’s policy of moderation” towards India. The sect, led by a man named Allama Mashriqi favoured Jihad against India. The Khaksars, formed in 1935 was a uniformed paramilitary organisation. Liaquat Ali Khan, a man of Western habits had realised that a concession to Islamic orthodoxy was a political necessity. He favoured collaboration with the West, advocated security measures against internal Communist activism and resisted Soviet diplomatic pressure on Pakistan. However, the CIA version was not accepted by the Pakistan government. Shortly after the Prime Minister’s assassination, the APP had come out with the news that the assassin was believed to be a Khaksar. Later, the story was withdrawn. After two hours, the Government announced that the assailant was an Afghan national of Khost, Afghanistan. He was detained under the Bengal Regulation Act. Syed Akbar was a Brigadier in the Afghan Army and was residing in Abbottabad. A commission was set up to enquire about the murder. After cross-checking with hundreds of witnesses and going through thousands of documents and evidence, the commission came to the conclusion that ‘ the assassination was not the individual act of Said Akbar but the result of a conspiracy involving a change of government.” Liaquat Ali Khan’s assassination remains an unsolved mystery, and all traces leading to the conspirator were removed.
(Published in The Martyrs' Supplement, The New Indian Express, South India & New Delhi along with The Morning Standard, January 30, 2019
link: http://epaper.newindianexpress.com/2002986/The-New-Indian-Express-Kochi/30012019#page/33/1
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