JI new setup completes as office-bearers take oath

PESHAWAR: With the nomination of general secretary, vice-presidents and other office-bearers, the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) has completed its new setup and the new officeholders took oath on Sunday.
The newly-elected JI provincial head Mushtaq Ahmad Khan administered oath to the office-bearers during the provincial shura meeting. Abdul Wasi took oath as the new general secretary of the party to replace Shabbir Ahmad Khan.
The five provincial vice-presidents of the party included Maulana Mohammad Ismail, Maulana Asadullah, Dr Mohammad Iqbal Khalil, Sahibzada Haroonur Rasheed and Mirajuddin Khan. Maulana Hidayatullah and Bahrullah Khan were named as deputy general secretaries.
After Mushtaq Ahmad Khan was elected as the provincial head and he nominated Abdul Wasi to be the general secretary, now young men are running the affairs of the JI in the province.Both in their early 40s, the provincial president and general secretary have long association with the JI since their student life when they were members of the Islami Jamiat-i-Talaba (IJT).
Mushtaq Ahmad Khan, who hails from Sheikh Jana village of Swabi district, joined the IJT, the student wing of JI, in the early 90s. He had to face strong opposition from his family members, who were ardent activists of the Awami National Party. But so strong was his commitment with the organisation that very soon he rose through the ranks to become the president of JI Mardan division chapter.
Later, he was made nazim for Kohat division and then the provincial general secretary of the organisation. In 1998, he was made the provincial president of IJT and the very next year he was elected as the central chief of the student organisation. He served for three consecutive terms of one-year each in that capacity.
After finishing his studies, he joined the JI and was made personal secretary to Qazi Hussain Ahmad, the then chief of the JI.Later, he was made provincial deputy general secretary and then general secretary at

provincial level. Before his recent election as provincial president of the party, he was serving as vice-president of the party. He also contested the 2013 general election on a provincial assembly seat from his native constituency in Swabi district, but he could not win.
Mushtaq Ahmad Khan is known as a good orator and a thorough reader of history and contemporary affairs, though he has got his education in physics and library science.Abdul Wasi hails from Shergarh town in Mardan district has also remained on key positions in IJT and he was a contemporary of Mushtaq in the student organisation. Perhaps he had joined the IJT a few years before Mushtaq. By the time when Mushtaq was the Mardan division president, Abdul Wasi served as head of a district in the same division.
Later, when Mushtaq was the provincial president of the organisation, Abdul Wasi was the provincial general secretary and then when the former was central president of the organisation, the latter was the provincial president. Abdul Wasi also served as central secretary general of IJT. In 2003 when Wasi completed his education, he joined the JI and was made JI Mardan chapter general secretary.Later, he was made provincial deputy general secretary and now the provincial secretary of the party. Abdul Wasi has done his master’s in political science and Islamiat.