Kissan leader Ch Fateh passes away

TOBA TEK SINGH: Thousands of people from all over the Punjab attended funeral prayers of Kissan leader and founder of Pakistan Kissan Committee Ch Fateh Muhammad here on Tuesday.

He was 97. Those who attended his funeral prayers include former Punjab Counter Terrorism minister Sardar Ayub Gadhi, PTI MPA Saeed Ahmad Saeedi, PTI central vice president Chaudhry Muhammad Ashfaq, former MPAs Amjad Ali Javed and Mian Rafiq, AWP provincial general secretary Abida Chaudhry, former Pakistan Kissan Committee general secretary Malik Muhammad Ali Bhara and AWP Multan president Farhat Abbas.

Ch Fateh had migrated to Pakistan from Jalandhar after the partition and settled in Toba Tek Singh’s Chak 305/GB, the centre of Kissan Sabha movement in the Punjab. He joined the Communist Party of Pakistan in 1948 and was elected a member of the Central Committee of Pakistan Trade Union Federation in 1950 while Faiz Ahmed Faiz was re-elected as vice-president and Mirza Muhammad Ibrahim as president.

Later, he and his fellow comrades joined Mian Iftikharuddin to form the Azad Pakistan Party which was later merged in the National Awami Party (NAP) at the Dhaka congress on September 25, 1957.