Akbar Liaquat Ali Khan passes away

Akbar Liaquat Ali Khan, the youngest son of Pakistan’s first prime minister Nawabzada Liaquat Ali Khan, passed away on Wednesday at a private hospital after a prolonged illness. He was 81.

According to media reports, Khan had been suffering from a kidney disease for four years. Confirming his death, District West Deputy Commissioner Raja Tariq Chandio said the Sindh government had been bearing all the expenses for his medical treatment.

His funeral prayers will be offered today (Thursday) after the Asr prayers. He will be buried at the Defense Phase VIII graveyard. Last year, former prime minister Imran Khan had also taken notice of media reports about Akbar’s illness, after which he had directed then Sindh governor ImranIsmail to immediately contact Akbar’s family and offer them financial support. In July 2021, President Dr Arif Alvi also visited his residence to enquire after his health.

Akbar was born in Delhi in 1941. He got his early education there. After Partition, he shifted to Karachi with his family as his father became the first prime minister of the newly formed Pakistan.

According to the Oxford University Press, Akbar attended the Belmont Preparatory School and Mill Hill School in England, and studied Law at King’s College, London. After returning to Karachi, he ran a trading company and was also associated with a travel business.

In the 1977 general elections, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto gave the PPP ticket to Akbar to contest the constituency of Liaquatabad, named after his father, in Karachi but he could not win. After that, wrote journalist Mehmood Sham in his column, Akbar never participated in politics.

Benazir Bhutto also reportedly offered him to join the PPP but he declined, stating that politics needed money. In a research paper that appeared in the Journal of the Punjab University Historical Society in volume No. 32, Issue No. 1, January - June 2019, the author, Hina Azmat, wrote that Liaquat Ali Khan and his wife Ra’ana had named their first son ‘Akbar’ who was born in 1937. However, the Quaid-e-Azam changed his name to Ashraf. Later, when the couple begot their second son in 1941, they again named their son Akbar.

Akbar’s elder brother Ashraf passed away in 2014. After his demise, the last primary source of information about the country’s first prime minister has also vanished. The eldest son of the country’s first prime minister was Wilayat Ali Khan who was the lone offspring from his first wife, Jameela Begum, who died in 1982.

Condolences

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah expressed grief over the demise of Akbar. He directed the city administration to help the heirs with the burial arrangements.

Federal Minister for Poverty Alleviation and Chairperson of Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) Shazia Atta Marri also expressed sorrow over Akbar’s death and offered condolences to his family.

Provincial Minister for Information, Transport and Mass-Transit Sharjeel Inam Memon also expressed his grief at Akbar’s demise. In his condolence statement, he said the Sindh government shared the sorrow of the bereaved family. He also prayed for the departed soul.

Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) Convener Dr Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui in his condolence statement said that the entire MQM-P was sad over the death of Akbar, He prayed for eternal bliss to the department soul.

Sindh Governor Kamran Tessori and Karachi Administrator Murtaza Wahab also expressed grief at the death of the son of the country’s first prime minister.