By Fazal Khaliq
MATTA, SWAT: Afzal Khan Lala, veteran nationalist leader, who refused to leave Swat to Taliban in 2007 after surviving several attacks on his life, was laid to rest in his ancestral village Durushkhela here on Sunday.
He died on Sunday morning in Combined Military Hospital, Rawalpindi of liver illness. He left behind three sons and three daughters.
“I will die but will not leave the ground to militants,” he had said when his well-wishers and government requested him to shift to a safer place as militancy was on its peak in Swat at that time and almost all political leaders and most of the residents of the district had shifted from the area.
His bravery in the face of terrorism, earned him the highest civilian award of bravery, Hilal-i-Shujaat in 2009, awarded to him by the President of Pakistan.
Afzal Khan, commonly known as Khan Lala, was born in 1926 in DurushKhela, Swat in the house of a well-known landlord Habib Khan (Darmai Khan), a staunch opponent of the then rulers of Swat.
Khan Lala, got his education at Islamia College, Peshawar and Government College Lahore and then got his LLB degree from Law College Peshawar. He was the founder president of Swat District Bar Association.
Khan Lala started his political career by joining National Awami Party in 1969 soon after the merger of Swat state into Pakistan. He was elected a Member of Provincial Assembly in 1970.
A close confidante of NAP chief Abdul Wali Khan, he was appointed a provincial minister in the short-term coalition government of JUI and NAP, led by Mufti Mehmood. In 1975, he was arrested by the then government to be tried by Hyderabad Tribunal. He was released in 1978 and was elected provincial president of Awami National Party.
In 1990, Khan Lala along with other senior nationalist leaders formed Pakhtunkhwa Quami Party to protest ANP’s decision to form alliance with Islami Jamhoori Ittehad.
In 1993, his party formed electoral alliance with Pakistan Peoples’ Party and he was elected to National Assembly. He served as a federal minister for Northern Areas and Kashmir from 1993 to 1996. He was appointed federal minister for health and population welfare and railways on October 12, 1996 but he quit electoral politics after 1997. However, he rejoined ANP in 2005.
Khan Lala used to urge Pakhtuns to resolve their issues through jirgas and form a grand jirga, comprising Pakhtun elders from both sides of the Durand Line.
In this regard, he convened a jirga in Peshawar in May 2012 that was attended by representatives of various parties and tribal elders. The jirga asked the United States and Nato forces to pull out their troops from Afghanistan and hand over power to Afghan people.
Khan Lala also penned down several books including ‘Muntashir Pakthoon’ , published in 1993, ‘Pakthun National Unity’, published in 1996, ‘Pakthunkhwa Ghag’, published in 1994, ‘Pakthun/Afghan Qami Jarga’, published in 2000, ‘Duran Line’, published in 2004 and ‘Pakhtun Qami Wahdat’ published in 2015.
