Army had highest regard for Afzal Khan Lala

PESHAWAR: The Pakistan Army gave the highest regard to veteran politician Mohammad Afzal Khan as long as he was alive and it sent high-ranking officers led by Corps Commander Peshawar to Swat on Sunday to attend his funeral.
Afzal Khan Lala, as he was commonly known, had won the respect of the Pakistan Army and also many Pakistanis by standing up to the Taliban when they gradually extended their hold in Swat and the adjoining districts of Malakand division post-2007.
The elderly nationalist politician, who died at the age of 89, resisted the Taliban onslaught and refused to abandon Swat despite the urging of his well-wishers. He stayed put in his beloved Swat when the militants tried to kill him on the road and later fired at his house in his village, Bara Drushkhela, in Matta tehsil. His defiant presence in Swat frustrated the Maulana Fazlullah-led Taliban and gave courage to his fellow Swatis at a critical time when most of the known politicians and notables had shifted to safer places in other parts of the country. The military obviously had something to do with it when Afzal Khan Lala was awarded the Hilal-i-Jurat (Crescent of Courage) medal by the government of Pakistan in 2009. Hilal-i-Jurat is the second highest gallantry award after the Nishan-i-Haider in Pakistan and Afzal Khan Lala was among its worthy recipients. Thereafter, the army authorities honoured Afzal Khan Lala by inviting him to their events. The generals, brigadiers and colonels heeded his advice. Troops were deployed at his village, Bara Drushkhela, to augment his force of volunteers. At the time a proposal was floated to make him the governor of Khyber Pakh-tunkhwa, but it didn’t materialize due to political considerations. The army would have welcomed his appointment because it knew him well and respected him more than any other politician.
On Sunday, Afzal Khan Lala died in the Combined Military Hospital in Rawalpindi and his body was taken to his village in Swat for burial. A large number of people converged on Bara Drushkhela from Swat and beyond to attend his funeral. So heavy was the rush that the roads were choked by vehicles coming from far and near. Among the mourners were Pakistan Army officers led by Corps Commander Peshawar, Lt Gen Hidayat-ur-Rahman and General Officer Commanding Swat, Maj Gen Nadir Khan. They had come to pay the last respects to a man they had come to respect for his courage and forthrightness.