Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao
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Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao (born August 20, 1944) is the head of Pakistan Peoples Party (Sherpao) and was the Federal Interior Minister in the cabinet of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz . Prior to this assignment he was working as the Federal Minister for Water and Power (WAPDA).
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[edit] Biography
Aftab Khan was educated at Edwardes College, Peshawar and Pakistan Military Academy, Kakul, Abbottabad. After passing out from Pakistan Military Academy with 34th Long Course in 1965, he joined Armoured Corps in the Probya's Horse Battalion, seeing action in both the '65 and '71 wars. Over a period of 12 years he rose to the rank of Major.
It was after the unfortunate assassination of his elder brother Hayat Muhammad Khan Sherpao in a bomb blast in 1975 that Aftab jumped into the political arena. The then Prime Minister of Pakistan Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto asked him to take an early retirement from his military career and afterwards nominated him as Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP) provincial vice-president. Aftab Khan was thus a stalwart of the original unified Pakistan Peoples Party from Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan.
After the death of his political mentor Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto he wholeheartedly supported his daughter Benazir Bhutto and her struggle against the military dictatorship of General Zia-ul-Haq. He was a key political figure of Movement for Restoration of Democracy (MRD) from NWFP. It was in 1988 elections to the Provincial Assembly that he orchestrated the downfall of the establishment backed Pakistan Muslim League (PML) and became the Chief Minister of the province. He took an extra-nationalist line to appease the nationalist forces, hostile to his party and thus broadened his political base in their stronghold areas. He was once again elected as the Chief Minister of NWFP in 1994. However, in the mid nineties he developed serious differences with Benazir Bhutto when Maj-Gen Naseerullah Babar mistakenly suspected his role in undercutting him through allotment of party tickets in Nowshehra. Finally leading to the formation of his own faction of the party called PPP (Sherpao). He fled Pakistan to Britain after the military came to power in 2002 amidst charges of corruption against him. Eventually he returned prior to the 2002 elections and after striking an electoral alliance with the religo-political parties he was elected to both the provincial and national assemblies and his party performed relatively well amidst the rout of his former party and the Muslim league in the frontier.
Siding with Pervez Musharraf after the 2002 elections he was rewarded by being appointed as federal minister for Water and power, and subsequently as Federal interior Minister he has been a prominent figure due to terrorist attacks and fighting in the tribal areas as well as Balochistan.
Aftab's family tree and cross-marriages in other influential families has given him a unique edge over his political opponents. His elder brother, late Wali Mohammad Khan's sister-in-law is the mother of former President of Pakistan Sardar Farooq Ahmed Khan Leghari and grandmother of Sumera Malik and Ayla Malik (granddaughters of Malik Amir Mohammed Khan of Kalabagh. One of late Wali Mohammad Khan's daughter is married to the former President of Pakistan Sardar Farooq Ahmed Khan Leghari, his son Dr.Mohammad Zubair Khan was a Commerce Minister and his grandson Awais Leghari was a Minister of Telecommunications and member of National Assembly. Aftab himself is the son-in-law of the brother of Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar. His elder son, Sikandar Hayat Khan Sherpao, has already jumped into the Provincial Politics and is a member of the Provincial Assembly.
[edit] Militant attacks on Sherpao
[edit] 28 April suicide attack
On April 28, 2007 he was injured in a suicide attack in his home area of Charsadda, 18 miles northeast of Peshawar, the capital of North-West Frontier Province. [1] The attack shook his confidence in Musharraf’s policy toward the militants, which has included a series of peace deals and has prompted Sherpao to support a 15-page document also presented to the US National Security Council in June 2007 warning that Islamists are spreading beyond the country’s lawless tribal areas and that without “swift and decisive action,” the growing militancy could engulf the rest of the country.
[edit] 21 December suicide attack
On December 21, 2007, Eid ul-Adha, a suicide bomb blast targeting Aftab Ahmad killed at least 57 and injured over 100 at Jamia Masjid Sherpao, located in District Charsadda in the Northwest Frontier Province. Aftab Ahmad survived the blast, but his younger son Mustafa Khan Sherpao, was injured. [2]
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Lt. Gen. (retd) Fazle Haq |
Chief Minister of the North-West Frontier Province 2 December 1988 - 6 August 1990 |
Succeeded by Mir Afzal Khan |
| Preceded by Pir Sabir Shah |
2nd term 24 April 1994 - 12 November 1996 |
Succeeded by Raja Sikander Zaman |
| Preceded by Makhdoom Faisal Saleh Hayat |
Interior Minister of Pakistan 25 August 2004 - 15 November 2007 |
Succeeded by Lt. Gen. (retd) Hamid Nawaz Khan |
[edit] External links
