Epoch-making leader: AJK marks death anniversary of Sardar Ebrahim

Glowing tributes paid to founding leader by President Masood Khan

MUZAFFARABAD: Ghazi-i-Millat Sardar Muhammad Ibrahim Khan was an epoch-making leader of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. He was instrumental in leading Azad Kashmir to liberation from the repressive rule of the Maharaja and later led Kashmir’s struggle for the right of self-determination.

These remarks were made by Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) President Sardar Masood Khan at the Central Press Club on the occasion of 14th death anniversary of AJK’s founding president being commemorated on Monday.

Paying rich tributes to Sardar Ibrahim, Masood said that if Sardar Ibrahim had not played his heroic and decisive role in 1947-48, there would have been no Azad Kashmir; and if Azad Kashmir had not been liberated, the issue of Kashmir would have died for all times to come as was in the case of Hyderabad and Junagarh.

Sardar Ibrahim, he said, is remembered and revered as Quaid-Azam of Jammu and Kashmir because of his high ideals, strong commitment and his principled politics. “Pakistan is incomplete without Kashmir; and Kashmir has no identity without Pakistan”, he said.

The AJK President said that if the Maharajah of Kashmir, the Indian rulers and British Viceroy had not conspired and colluded in 1947 to disrupt the historical trend and aspiration of the people of Jammu and Kashmir, the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir would have become part of Pakistan.

Sardar Ibrahim was born on April 10, 1915 in Kot Mattay Khan, a village in the Poonch District of Kashmir. He received his primary education in his village after which he graduated from Islamia college Lahore with B.A. degree in 1935 and went for higher education abroad in 1938.

He obtained his LLB degree from the University of London in 1943 then obtained a law degree from Lincoln’s Inn, and started practicing law at Srinagar, Kashmir. He was the founder and first President of Azad Kashmir.

He represented Kashmir in different capacities at the United Nations from 1948 to 1971. On July 19, 1947, a general assembly meeting of Muslim Conference was held at his residence where a resolution was unanimously passed for the State of Kashmir to join Pakistan.    On October 24,1947, the Mujahideen led by him defeated the forces of the Maharaja in the Poonch rebellion and founded the state of Azad Kashmir, which became a self-governing division of Pakistan.

He was elected president of Azad Kashmir for the second time on April 13, 1957, and for the third time on June 5, 1975.    He was re-elected again as the President of Azad Kashmir in August 1996. He remained in office until August 2001 and was the President of Azad Kashmir four times in his lifetime. He died in Islamabad on July 31, 2003 after a long illness at the age of 88.

With additional input from APP

Published in The Express Tribune, August 1^st, 2017.