K & P

Last of the Khudai Khidmatgars: Veteran ANP leader gunned down in Charsadda

Life-long companion of Wali Khan, Dost Muhammad served the party all his life

Mureeb Mohmand July 02, 2015

Life-long companion of Wali Khan, Dost Muhammad served the party all his life. PHOTO: EXPRESS

CHARSADDA: One of the last few Khudai Khidmatgars and witnesses to the August 12, 1948 Babara massacre, veteran Awami National Party leader Dost Muhammad was gunned down in Charsadda on Thursday.

Popularly known as Dosti Khan, Dost Muhammad was present at the party office in Utmanzai when unidentified motorcyclists sprayed him with bullets. The 88-year-old was an ardent follower of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and a life-long companion of Wali Khan.

City police inspector Ijaz Khan Abazai told The Express Tribune preliminary investigation revealed it was an incident of target killing.

Friends, revolutionaries

The deceased was a close relative of the Bacha Khan clan. He was expelled from school along with Wali Khan over a protest against the British Raj in 1942. MPA Yasmeen Peer Muhammad Khan and former provincial minister and ANP Charsadda president Arshad Abdullah Khan are also related to Dost Muhammad.

Police registered an FIR on the complaint on the deceased’s nephew Fahim Khan. ANP Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa said the killing reflects the failure of the provincial government. In a joint press release issued on Thursday, ANP K-P President Amir Haider Khan Hoti, General Secretary Aimal Wali Khan and Information Secretary Sardar Hussain Babak condemned the murder.

“ANP workers have been targeted since a long time, while the K-P government has maintained a criminal silence,” Hoti said. He demanded the provincial government take serious action against the culprits and bring them to justice. ANP Charsadda announced three days of mourning following the incident.

Dost Muhammad, who was interviewed by The Express Tribune almost a year ago, said he was also among the Utmanzai jirga, convened by Bacha Khan in his native village. He and his older brother had compiled the names of massacre victims, which according to him were in the hundreds.

Targeted

In a separate incident, former ANP office-bearer Tajmeer Shah was also shot dead in Katozai village of Shabqadar tehsil on Wednesday night.

Shah was en route to his house when unidentified motorcyclists intercepted him and gunned him down. The deceased was amongst those who led a peace march against militants in the tehsil in 2008.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 3^rd, 2015.

COMMENTS (4)

Sainbaba | 9 years ago | Reply It is extremely sad that one more great who was a freedom fighter is gone. Wonder if he wrote book to share his experidncez sith uz? But ANP role in Karachi has been dismal. They did nothing to develop NWFP now KPK otherwise we would all be in our homes in Peshawar and not in Karachi. Instead of Karachi the world would have flocked to Peshawar.

CAP | 9 years ago | Reply It is sad that the ANP ran KPK province for five years yet did everything possible to worsen the security and law and order situation in the province because it was too busy fighting a turf war with the MQM to take control over Karachi. If the ANP had bothered to govern its own province properly and not hand over vast swathes of the province to the TTP in Nizam-e-Adal of 2009, then the province would have been peaceful and secure enough so that target killings and assassinations of the ANP's own leaders would not have taken place. This is a very sad day, but at the end of the day the ANP has only itself to blame.

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