Ex-Karachi mayor Naimatullah Khan passes away at 89

Naimatullah Khan, former Nazim of Karachi and member of the provincial assembly of Sindh, died at a local hospital after a protracted illness on Tuesday. He was 89. A Jamaat-e-Islami spokesperson said his funeral prayers will be offered on Wednesday (today) in the metropolitan city. He is survived by 12 children.

Born in October 1930 in Shahjahan Pur, Rajasthan, India, Khan has an interesting life history. He received his primary education from Shahjahan Pur and Ajmer.

He was 16 when he had attended the Muslim Legislators Conference convened by Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. From 1946 until Partition, Khan served as the Ajmer president for the Muslim League National Guards, a quasi-military force associated with the All-India Muslim League that participated in the Pakistan Movement.

On August 28, 1947 Khan’s family migrated from Shahjahan Pur to Karachi. After migrating to Pakistan Khan did his graduation from the Punjab University in Lahore and got his law degree from the University of Karachi.

He was a lawyer by profession. He also worked as a stenographer at the Karachi municipality with Jamshed Nusserwanjee, the first elected mayor of the metropolitan city.

In 1957 Khan joined the JI. According to the late Prof Ghafoor Ahmad, a JI stalwart, it was him who had convinced Khan to join the party.

Since then Khan was associated with the JI. He served as the party’s deputy chief for Karachi and later as the city chief for the longest period. He was serving as the deputy chief of the party’s Sindh chapter before his death.

In 1985 he became an MPA during the elections held on non-party basis and served as the opposition leader in the assembly after gaining the trust of all the opposition members. Until 1988, when the legislature was dissolved, Khan had served as the opposition leader for three and a half years.

When a new local government system under the devolution of powers plan was introduced across the country during the Musharraf regime, Khan was elected the first Nazim in 2001 after an alliance between the JI and the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) was formed.

Because the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) had boycotted the LG polls in 2001, the JI won most of the union councils in the city. The PML-Q’s Tariq Hasan was elected Naib Nazim with him. He remained Nazim from 2001 to 2005.

It was a highly challenging assignment for Khan due to the ambiguity in the newly introduced LG system, which both the traditional politicians and the bureaucrats were reluctant to accept. He is credited with initiating multiple development projects in the metropolis.

In 2005 he had again contested for the post of Karachi mayor after forging an alliance with the Pakistan Peoples Party, but he lost to the MQM’s Mustafa Kamal. Current Sindh Education Minister Saeed Ghani was the candidate for deputy mayor with Khan.

In the 2013 general elections, he contested from the then NA-247, a constituency comprising the upmarket DHA and Clifton neighbourhoods, but could not win. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s Dr Arif Alvi, who is now the country’s president, had won that seat. Khan also chaired the Al Khidmat Foundation, the JI’s charity wing. As a lawyer, he also initiated public interest litigation against the encroachment of Karachi’s parks and other prominent areas facing china-cutting.

In the final years of his life, he had formed a think tank named Fikar Milli Trust. JI stalwart Prof Khursheed Ahmed, former KU vice chancellor Dr Jamil Jalibi, former Higher Education Commission chairman Dr Pareshan Khattak, former Punjab University VC Dr Muhammad Rafiq, former Balochistan governor Lt Gen (retd) Abdul Qadir Baloch and economist Dr Shahid Hasan Siddiqui were part of the think tank.