Liaquat Ali Khan

Liaquat Ali Khan married his cousin, Jehangira Begum, in 1918. He married for the second time in 1932. His second wife, Begum Ra'ana, was a prominent economist and an educator who played an influential role in the Pakistan movement. He had three sons from these marriages.

During a public meeting of the Muslim City League at Company Bagh (Company Gardens), Rawalpindi, on 16 October 1951, Khan was shot twice in the chest by a hired assassin. The assassin was immediately killed by the police but the exact motive behind the assassination has never been fully revealed.

He was given the honorific title of "Shaheed-e-Millat", or "Martyr of the Nation" upon his death.

Liaquat Ali Khan was born on 1 October 1895 in Karnal, Eastern Punjab of British India into a wealthy family of landlords. His father, Nawab Rustam Ali Khan, was much respected by the British Government and his mother Mahmoodah Begum was a religious lady.

His family wanted the young Liaquat to be educated according to the British educational system and arranged for him to study law and political science at the famous Muhammadan Anglo Oriental College (now Aligarh Muslim University). He graduated with a BSc in Political science and LLB in 1918.

He received scholarships and grants from the British Government which enabled him to attend the Oxford University's Exeter College in England for his higher education. In 1921, Khan was awarded the Master of Law in Law and Justice. He was called to the Bar in 1922.

Liaquat Ali Khan returned to India in 1923 and soon entered national politics. He was disturbed by the injustices and ill-treatment meted out to the Indian Muslims under the British and wanted to work towards eliminating this discrimination. He also strongly believed in Hindu-Muslim unity.

He was approached by the Congress party but he refused to join them and instead joined the All India Muslim League in 1923. The Muslim League was led by another lawyer Muhammad Ali Jinnah with whom Khan went on to foster a close political relationship in future.

In 1926, he began his political career as an elected member of the United Provinces Legislative Council from the rural Muslim constituency of Muzzafarnagar. In 1932, he was unanimously elected Deputy President of UP Legislative Council.

Khan worked closely with Jinnah over the following years. In 1928, the two men decided to discuss the Nehru Report and in 1930, they attended the First Round Table Conference. The conference proved to be a disaster following which Jinnah moved from British India to Great Britain.

Jinnah returned to British India after a few years and began re-organizing the Muslim League. In 1936, Jinnah moved a resolution proposing Khan as the Honorary General Secretary which was accepted. In 1940, Khan was made the deputy leader of the Muslim League Parliamentary party.

Upon becoming the prime minister, Khan implemented initiatives to develop educational infrastructure, science and technology in the country. He appointed Salimuzzaman Siddiqui as his first government science adviser and asked Ziauddin Ahmed to draft the educational policy for establishing a strong educational system in Pakistan. During his tenure, the establishment of the Sindh University was also authorized.

As the leader of a newly created nation, Khan wanted to develop friendly relations with powerful countries like the U.S. He visited the U.S. and asked for civilian foreign aid for economic and moral support to build Pakistan to which the U.S. agreed. Pakistan received U.S. aid for several years before the relations between the two nations soured.