Politician’s death: Ata Qureshi laid to rest in ancestral graveyard

2 funerals were held for the ex-PML-N MNA; Qureshi was a PPP member from 1990 to 1997.

MULTAN:

The funeral prayers for former MNA Ata Mohammad Qureshi were offered on Thursday. He was later laid to rest in his ancestral graveyard in Rohianwali.

Qureshi had been ill for a few days and had been admitted to Nishtar Hospital where he died on Wednesday.

Two funerals were held for Qureshi, who was one of the founding members of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and later joined the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).

First, the prayers were offered at 10 am in Multan near the Khwaja Fareed Hospital on Vehari Road. His body was then taken to Rohianwali where prayers were offered at Daidhay Lal Darbar at 1:30 pm.



Qureshi had been a member of the PPP from 1970 to 1977. When General Ziaul Haq imposed the martial law, he was among those who were arrested and held at the Lahore Fort.

He was set free in 1984 and took part in 1985 non-party elections. He won a seat in the Punjab Assembly.

During prime minister Junejo’s tenure, the then Punjab chief minister Nawaz Sharif persuaded him to join the PML-N. He lost the 1988 election to Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan. In 1990, the PML-N did not give a ticket to Qureshi because of an alliance it had formed with Khan. Qureshi contested the elections on a Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Pakistan ticket and defeated Khan.

Khan won in the 1993 elections but in 1997, Qureshi won the election against his arch rival on a PML-N ticket.

Qureshi could not contest the elections in 2002 because he was not a university graduate.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 4^th, 2013.