My life and struggle – V

NSO’s organisation building in Punjab

Fayyaz Baqir

Soon after the National Students Organisation (NSO) was formed we started work on setting up units in educational institutions in and outside of Lahore. We attracted young idealists, moralists, careerists; all sorts of students who wanted freedom, justice, equality and a fair society. They believed in a system based on rationality, openness and social change. Since the NSO had no affiliation with any mass party, NSO cadre selected their own path after graduating from colleges or universities. Many of our active members rose to high positions in the trade union movement, journalism, leftist political parties, public life and business endeavours. Some like Imtiaz Alam and Shamoon Saleem rejected ‘bourgeois’ education and did not care to get a degree. Others like Mojahid Mirza and Nazeer Chaudhry got degrees in Medicine and Law but did not choose the practice as a lifelong career. Some like Fazal Hussain Rahi contested elections and won. Many like Zaman Khan and Mahboob Khan joined NGOs, or like Imtiaz Alam and Sarwar Bari created their own NGOs (SAFMA and Pattan). Some opted for teaching, and some like Asghar Ali Shirazi, Hafiz Rauf Tahir and Javed Niaz became stories of business success. Others, like Saqib Alim, Pervaiz Inayat Malik and Masood Mirza made their mark as distinguished civil servants. Some of our members like Tariq Khurshid Nadeem and Mian Jahangir were arrested on charges of working for Al Zulfiqar. Khwaja Tariq Masood, Tariq Lateef, Zahid Islam and Shamoon Saleem became part of the trade union movement. One of our members, Shoaib Mansoor, became a great film maker. A highly motivated friend decided to carry out ‘private’ armed struggle and committed 50 bank robberies. Some joined the ranks of overseas workers. Some who were afflicted by mental illness, tortured in prison, or were sidelined due to other reasons could not become part of the mainstream. Some of our comrades died young. One way or the other many of them are still working for the cause they believed in.

We spread out in quite a few districts in a short span of time. This was partly due to the connections of our hostel residents who introduced us to their home districts. Punjab University (PU) turned out to be a strategic location for the NSO. There were 7,000 students in PU at that time, coming from almost all the districts of Punjab. The majority of them lived in university hostels. These hostels, especially New Campus hostels, became the hub of our activities.

Our leading unit was at New Campus PU. The most active members of this unit were Manzur Ejaz, Imtiaz Alam, Arif Raja, Shuja-ul-Haq, Yusuf Bhira, Fahim Jozi, Hamid Jillani, Munawwar Hayat, Yaqoob Mohl, Hameed Akhter, Masood Mirza, Qasim Anwar, Aurangzeb Syed, Tanvir Ahmad, Rao Fasahat Ali, Imran Zafar, Rana Sarwar and Nazir Chaudhry. We formed a unit at Government College Wahdat Road led by Naved Ahmad; the Government College Baghbanpura unit was led by Chudhry Ashraf; the Islamia College Civil Lines unit by Mian Jahangir, who was elected General Secretary of the Students Union. He later became a prominent lawyer and General Secretary of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Lahore. Jahangir died a few years ago. Other prominent members of the Civil Lines unit were Barkaat Ahmad and Hasan Baqir. Our MAO College unit was headed by Mohammad Sami. He was very active in the PPP, and well known in Lahore PPP circles. He was among the most trusted activists of ‘Baba-e-Socialism’ Shaikh Rashid. Our convener for Government College Lahore (GC) was Waheed Aslam. Other members included Wilayat Ali Khan, Sarmad Manzoor, Anjum, Iqbal Rasheed and Asif Khan. Asif Khan is currently Head of the Human Rights Commission of the PPP in Punjab. The Old Campus unit was led initially by Javed Ali Khan. Khan later left the NSO and joined Young People’s Front (YPF). The Hailey College unit was headed by Rafaqat Ali; Ali Shoaib and Sadaqat Ali were its most prominent members. The Diyal Singh College unit was managed by Iqbal Butt, the Law College unit by Tariq Lateef, and the Chemical Technology unit by Abdul Mateen.

Our Faisalabad unit was led by Mahbub Khan. Pervaiz was a very active member of the Sialkot unit, and Shamim Ahmad Khan became Deputy Speaker of the Punjab Assembly after the PPP formed the government in Punjab. Talib Jullundhri, a poet from Faisalabad, was a great fan of the NSO, and he composed this couplet in Punjabi:

Wich hunarian kardi lo

Sadi Jama’at NSO.

(Our party NSO glows in the dark).

He also composed another poem – more in line with the spirit of Raja Anwer’s Jhootey Roop Key Darshan:

Tera Mera Sath vi kee hey tera mera mail vikee

Mein ik mehnat kash da puttar, too rashi afser di dhee

Teray pichay Teddy munday meray pichay CID.

(You and I are no match. I am the son of a worker, you are the daughter of a corrupt official. You are chased by Teddy boys, and I am chased by spooks).

Our convener for the Shakargarh unit was Pervaiz Inayat Malik. Convener Sialkot Irfan Aziz was very active. He later on moved to Lahore and became active in local politics. He died young. The NSO was introduced in Sargodha by our law college activist Shahzad Khan, who also died young. His cousin in Sargodha Asif Khan later helped us with our work in Sargodha. Our Hafizabad unit was led by Safdar Kharal, the Sahiwal unit by Saqib Aleem. Ivan Rajkumar Bannerji was one of our very active members in the Sahiwal unit. In the Engineering University we did not form an NSO unit but worked with the Engineering Students Front (ESF). For all practical purposes we worked together as one organization. Asghar Ali Shirazi was the founding president of the ESF, and its active members included Nawaz Sahi, Hafiz Rauf Tahir, Zubair Arshad and Iqbal. Shirazi also won the election for the Engineering University Students Union. Our Okara unit was led by Naseer Ahmad. The Multan unit was set up by Nazeer Chaudhry. Other active members of the NSO Multan unit were Shamoon Saleem, Mojahid Mirza, Sarwar Bari, Mohammad Sharif, Tahir Hussain, Shahid Mubashir and Azmat Qadir. The Bahawalnagar unit was led by Anwer Chaudhry. Iqbal Butt was among the most prominent, active and committed members of the NSO, and one of its founding members. I lost track of him.

We did not create units in other provinces. In NWFP we coordinated with the Pakistan Students’ Federation (PSF) headed by Haider Zaman. It was during my first meeting with Haider Zaman in 1972 that I met his roommate, Afrasiab Khattak, at Peshawar University Hostel.

Students Union Punjab University: Second Election

One year after breaking the ballot boxes, new elections for the PU Students Union were announced. Jahangir Badar and other left wing leaders were still in jail. Before the nomination of our panel, we were approached by Hafeez Khan seeking NSO’s nomination for President. Hafeez Khan was a very handsome and charismatic student. He was liberal in values and ambitious about power, glamour, wealth and status. He had won as General Secretary of the Students Union on the Islami Jamiat-i-Talaba (IJT) ticket the year before. In certain ways he was closer to us due to his liberal outlook. He stood a very good chance of winning the election with our support. We, however, decided to nominate Jahangir Badar again as our candidate for President. He had gained lots of sympathy for serving the jail term, and his sacrifice could easily beat Hafeez Khan’s charisma in attracting votes.

Our candidate for Vice President was Rashid Butt. Rashid Butt had many feathers in his cap. One, he was very close to the PPP Chairman Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. In the early days of Bhutto’s movement against Ayub Khan, the government was using every tactic to deprive him of opportunities for public contact. When he announced a public meeting at Gol Bagh Lahore (later named Nasir Bagh by Bhutto), the park was flooded with water, and a live electric wire was thrown in as a plot to electrocute anyone who tried to enter the venue of the gathering. He was attacked in Sanghar and Multan. On all these occasions young student leaders stood next to him to fight back. Rashid Butt was General Secretary of the Student Union Islamia College Civil Lines. He invited Bhutto to speak in his college. Bhutto thought highly of Rashid Butt for this warm and courageous gesture. Two, he also had a very vast circle of friends, and would hug everyone every time he met them. This ‘Japha’ (hugging) politics was a very important asset of Rashid Butt. Unlike diehard NSO cadre, he would never let his ideology come in the way of making personal friends. Three, he was a member of the National Students Federation (NSF) and was considered a committed and reliable leftist, but he asked for votes from everyone he knew, left, right and centre. Our candidate for General Secretary was Anwer Chaudhry. We thought he would bring in the goodwill associated with Hafeez Khan’s liberal image.

Our panel seemed to be a formidable panel. However, as the campaign started, different factors came into play. Jahangir Badar was known as a great Punjabi debater and had a thick Lahori accent. Rashid Butt was also not a great speaker. One handsome and sharp liberal candidate Ilyas Shaikh tried hard to get a leftist ticket for the president’s post but failed. He was a good speaker in English and Urdu. To avenge himself he used to privately make fun of Badar and Butt as speakers. The IJT also very soon realized that this weakness should be used against our candidates. Butt relied more on personal contacts than speech. Badar did not get any opportunity for personal contacts due to his imprisonment. So, as a master stroke, Hafeez Khan got Jahangir Badar released a couple of days before the elections – using his close connection with Punjab’s Governor General Atiq-ur-Rehman’s daughter. As soon as Badar came out, the larger than life image of his persona, caused by the mystery and sacrifice attached to imprisonment under military rule, was replaced by a milder and mundane image of a Punjabi debater. This affected the Left’s performance in the second election. Our panel lost but Rashid Butt won by a handsome margin. Here are signs for those who care to think.

PU Student Union Elections 1972

By the time the third election after the revival of the student union came around, many developments had taken place. The PPP was having a tough time at both the hands of the IJT and the NSO in Lahore. The PPP’s own student wing, the People’s Students Federation (PSF), found no traction in PU. The PPP had decided to recognize Bangladesh, and the IJT vehemently opposed this decision. One of IJT’s followers, Waheed Khan, was killed by police firing on a procession carried out from Old Campus PU against the recognition of Bangladesh. The NSF supported the PPP, but it had a very narrow support base at PU compared to the NSO. Jama’at-e-Ahmadia (JA) was also taking interest in increasing its hold within the PPP and left wing student politics. Some brilliant Ahmadi students were part of the PSF at Nishtar Medical College Multan, and the JA was taking a close interest in student politics there as well. Malik Ghulam Mustafa Khar was Governor Punjab, and he wanted to create space for PPP support among students through making deals with student leaders and provoking conflict between various student outfits.

This time NSO decided to go it alone. NSO was confident of its wide support base, organizational strength and consistent work to bag a large number of votes without alliance with the NSF. Ordinary Left supporters were not convinced of the veracity of this strategy. As election dates drew near, left wing students pushed the NSO and NSF to join hands. Thus, a joint six member Committee was formed to decide on the election panel. NSO’s three member group was headed by me and the NSF group was headed by Javaid Ali Khan. Very tough negotiations took place. NSF named Raja Anwer as its presidential candidate, and NSO opposed it tooth and nail. NSO considered Raja Anwer a Trotskyite and had serious ideological differences with him. NSO even deputed a spy – Jamil Khan – to keep an eye on Raja Anwer and probe him deeper about his ideology. Raja, it seems, was not aware of this. When he heard so much about Trotsky from Jamil, he started calling him Jamil Trots (out of affection). NSO’s views about Raja’s ideological leanings were based on his full page picture published by Tariq Ali in his book on the 1960s Student Movement. Since Tariq Ali was a known Trotskyite, and he published Raja’s picture, it was considered as evidence of Raja’s Trotskyite credentials. Almost 35 years later when Jamil and I shared this secret with Raja at his Islamabad mansion, his jaw dropped in amazement. He never knew that he was a Trotskyite.

Raja was a very pragmatic ‘idealist’, and I will narrate three stories, one with reference to the student union elections, and two relating to his visits to D I Khan during my lectureship at Gomal University in the coming pages. In 2007 when we met, Raja had a bar near his dining room. No drinks were served there, but pictures of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Ho Chi Minh hung above the bar counter. All his friends knew this. At his daughter’s wedding I shared a table with Pervaiz Rasheed, Hafizullah Khan Niazi (Imran Khan’s cousin) and a few other close friends. When Raja passed by, Niazi stopped him and asked, “I have heard there are four pictures hanging under the ceiling in your dining room.” “Which pictures?” Raja asked. “Marx, Engels and Nawaz Sharif, Shahbaz Sharif,” retorted Niazi. Raja had a good laugh and left. He knew Niazi was referring to his jumping on the Muslim League bandwagon. After the 2007 elections when we were discussing the failure of our old university friends in winning elections on the PPP ticket, Raja said, “Losing an election in the PPP is like signing your death warrant.” A defeated candidate turns into nobody in the PPP. Raja has to his credit jumping into positions of power even after losing elections; first in the Bhutto government, and later in the Shahbaz Sharif government.

During the 1972 elections there were four ‘pragmatic idealist’ allies in the Left’s camp: NSO, NSF, PPP and JA. Pragmatic idealism reminds me of a joke Professor Khalid Mahmood narrated about Yugoslavia’s communist ruler Marshal Tito. Tito had a unique place in the communist bloc. He neither sided with the Soviets nor the Chinese in their polemics on the correct revolutionary path. He practiced ‘Market Socialism’ in Yugoslavia and was a leading figure in the non-aligned movement. So, he kept his channels open with both the Soviets and the Americans. According to the Professor, it so happened that US President Nixon and Soviet Prime Minister Brezhnev decided to visit Yugoslavia the same day. Both the guests were seated in an open jeep, Tito in the front seat with the driver and the guests in the back, Brezhnev on the left and Nixon on the right. As the jeep reached a crossing, Nixon asked the driver to turn to the right and Brezhnev asked him to turn to the left. The driver looked at Marshal Tito. Tito said, “Give the indicator to the left, and make a turn to the right.” So was the case with our alliance. All the partners had convergence and divergence of interests. We converged on defeating the IJT but diverged on the selection of candidates. Every party used manoeuvres, arm twisting and covert tactics to get things its way.

This ‘pragmatism’ had been pleaded by Gramsci in his “The Modern Prince” also. It indicated that Machiavellian tactics are inseparable from politics, revolutionary or reactionary. At some point, ends justify the means. We followed this path without being aware of Gramsci at that time. We finally agreed on picking the NSO’s nominee Basit Waheed as presidential candidate. It was a big setback for the NSF and its towering leader Raja Anwer. After tense negotiations we agreed on announcing Raja Anwer as our candidate for Vice President. The JA agreed to support our joint panel. JA had approached the high command of the NSO’s mother party, and the high command arranged my meeting with the point man in JA. The JA agreed to support us in printing and delivering handbills and posters prepared by us. A young man from the Khalifa’s family (say Mirza X) was deputed to coordinate with me. However, as soon as the panel consisting of Basit Waheed (President), Raja Anwer (Vice President) and Qasim Khan (General Secretary) was formed, Abdul Hayee having affiliation with JA announced his candidacy for Vice President. When JA was approached to withdraw his name, JA showed an inability to influence Abdul Hayee. We thought he could easily turn our chances of success into defeat. When nothing worked, Zaman Khan came up with his solution. In the IER department when Abdul Hayee was making a speech upon the shoulders of one of his supporters, Zaman Khan raised the slogan, “Abdul Hayee Mirzai, Abdul Hayee Mirzai.” Soon afterwards Abdul Hayee withdrew his name. The story did not end here. It will be resumed later on.

The PPP government also approached the high command but did not get any positive response. Raja Anwer was very keen on closing ranks with the PPP because he thought it would ensure his electoral victory. When nothing worked out, he took Qasim Khan into confidence to arrange my meeting with the Governor of Punjab Malik Ghulam Mustafa Khar. Qasim Khan was a very close friend of mine and I fully trusted him. Qasim Khan knew that I will not accompany him to a meeting with Khar. We had decided not to approach the PPP government at that point. So, one afternoon he came to see me in my hostel, Sir Syed Hall, commonly known as Hostel number 2. He asked me to accompany him to a very important meeting. A white Toyota car was waiting at the back door of hostel number 2. Seated in the car was Raja Anwer and Jahangir Badar’s cousin Akram. I and Qasim Khan got in and the car drove off. We ended up at Mukhtar Awan’s Ministerial residence on The Mall right across from the Governor’s House. I knew Mukhtar Awan as my city fellow from Multan and had taken part in his election campaign as well. He received all of us very warmly, and after exchange of pleasantries he said, “Let us go.” “Where to?” I asked. “We are getting late,” he said.

Meeting with Khar

By now we had been shifted to Mukhtar Awan’s official car. Akram was asked to stay at Awan’s guest room. The Minister’s car, with a flag fluttering on the bonnet, drove across the road and entered the Governor’s House. On the sprawling lawn of the Governor’s House a few easy chairs and a low coffee table were already laid out. We alighted from the car and took seats. In a few moments, the honorable Governor joined us. I had no idea why and how this meeting was arranged. We had introductions, and after some chit chat the students union election came under discussion. Khar asked me if we needed any help in the elections. I told him that we were doing well but were not getting good press coverage and did not have enough vehicles for the election campaign. Khar said the PPP could not help much on press coverage because the Press was ‘free’ and did not heed any ‘advice’. The PPP did not have much influence on newspapers, nor could it provide vehicles. However, “We can provide you financial assistance.” He pulled out a stack of thousand rupee notes and offered it to me. “What is this?” I asked. He understood my reluctance and replied, “Comrade, I am not trying to bribe you.” “You don’t know that when we came to power, we destroyed intelligence records of all leftist political workers.” “We are fighting for the same cause,” and “We want to help your campaign.” He did not know that I knew what he did not know. I said, “I have not discussed the matter of receiving financial support in my organization, and we don’t need any money.” Khar did not like this response, and anger and displeasure was visible on his face. He felt slighted and could not swallow my refusal. The whole atmosphere got tense. Awan and Raja looked at me as if asking for some face saving gesture for the ‘honourable’ Governor.

To ease the tension I took the stack of notes from Khar and gave it to Mukhtar Awan to keep it in his custody until the matter was discussed in the NSO’s Central Committee. Now the conversation turned to the IJT panel and Khar said, “How come Javed Hashmi, a nobody, has become a big time student leader?” He perhaps knew that both I and Hashmi had been class fellows at Government College Multan and had campaigned against each other in elections there. So, he tried to play on my ego to build a sense of common cause. In my view Hashmi had every right to be a student leader, and there was nothing wrong in his political ambitions. I disagreed with his politics, but not his right to participate in politics. So, I did not catch the ball. He went one step further and said, “He should be killed.” He thought perhaps this suggestion would appeal to my idea of armed struggle. I thought he wanted to trap me into a meaningless cycle of violence, which might serve his political interests, but not our politics at all. In my view student politics was about ideological debate, and an election provided a platform to carry out this debate on a large scale, nothing more, nothing less. I feigned ignorance, as if Khar was speaking a foreign language, and completely ignored his suggestion. There was nothing more to talk about. We asked permission to leave. The meeting was dismissed.

I learned later on that certain gullible ‘comrades’ not only got motivated by this concept of ‘armed struggle’ but were assured of support to carry out this ‘revolutionary act’. I was approached by some of them to participate in this ‘historic’ duty and opposed the idea. I was accused of being a ‘coward’ and ‘renegade’ by some but did not budge from my position. There were some who kept the pot boiling for a militant showdown with IJT. Rumours were also spread in the IJT camp to make them nervous and incite them to violence. This ‘revolutionary’ campaign for spilling reactionary blood continued till the day of the election. Sponsors of this ‘armed struggle’ reminded me of Tariq Latif’s favorite quotation: “Beware of the man who can sacrifice himself, because he can easily sacrifice others.” That is what happened. I heard the news of tension building up at the Old Campus where the Left and IJT activists had taken positions on opposite sides of the road between the Law College and the Old Campus. IJT supporters camped in the Old Campus near the Hall where election results were to be announced. Leftist supporters gathered on the Law College lawn. ‘Armed struggle’ had to begin upon the announcement of ‘undesirable’ results.

Jama’at-e-Ahmadia (JA) exits the Alliance

While Khar and Awan were trying to stoke the fire of violence in the name of ‘armed struggle’ by placing their guns on the shoulders of naive revolutionaries or self-serving student leaders, JA was trying to stoke another fire, the fire of sectarianism. Khar and party wanted to gain ground by pitching their ‘enemies’ against one another, and then negotiating their terms with the weakened Left. JA wanted to use the Left to make a dent in IJT’s hold over student politics. During the 1972 elections a pamphlet was distributed on Campus condemning the Shia, Ahmadi and Communist Alliance in the PU student union election. This was the language commonly used by Urdu daily Nawa-i-Waqt to malign Communists. According to Nawa-i-Waqt’s conspiracy theory, Communists, Hindus, Jews and Ahmadis had made an unholy alliance to dismantle Pakistan. They kept creating alarm about their ‘conspiracies’ and warned people to keep away from them. Demanding social and economic equality, for example, was one such conspiracy hatched by these ‘enemies of the ideology of Pakistan’. We therefore did not give much importance to this pamphlet. The pamphlet alleged that Basit Wheed was an Ahmadi, Raja Anwer a Communist and Qasim Khan a Shia (in my view none of these accusations were true) and this unholy trinity must be defeated by God-fearing Muslims.

The NSO ignored this pamphlet, but students wanted an explanation from us. The NSO had a respectable group of Shia supporters who got infuriated at the IJT after reading this pamphlet. Among their leaders was my dear Multani friend Syed Asghar Ali Gardezi, who lived in Hostel One, headquarters of the IJT. His room was next to IJT’s firebrand speaker Iftikhar Feroz and other IJT stalwarts. He immediately approached IJT’s leading lights, including Hafeez Khan and Iftikhar Feroz, and strongly protested against this malicious propaganda. The IJT refused to accept it as their pamphlet. This further added to the confusion. At that point we decided to issue a rebuttal. We wrote a strongly worded pamphlet condemning IJT’s malicious campaign and clarifying the position of our candidates. Mirza X was given the job of getting cyclostyled copies of the pamphlet printed and delivered to us. Distribution of the pamphlet dealt an unexpected blow to us. It put us in such a horrible situation that it seemed damage control would not be possible. It turned out that the handwriting of the rebuttal pamphlet was exactly like the handwriting of the original pamphlet. We had not the faintest idea that the first pamphlet was produced by JA. Detection of similar handwriting on both the posters put us in a very embarrassing and humiliating situation. I was dumbfounded on hearing about this foul play by our ‘ally’. It was a stab in our back.

Our Shia supporters were extremely hurt and asked me for an explanation. I was furious to know that JA’s stupid move had put our credibility at stake. My blood was boiling. I started looking for Mirza X to hear his explanation of what happened. Mirza X never returned, and JA exited the scene. I took Asghar Gardezi into confidence on this mishap. In the meantime, the IJT formed a joint committee with Shia students to review both of the pamphlets and fix the responsibility. There was no doubt that the second pamphlet was distributed by the NSO. If the first pamphlet had the same handwriting as the second one, then IJT would come out clean and we would be put on the mat. JA’s brains foolishly thought that by putting the blame on IJT they would win over the sympathy of the Shias. That did not happen. The joint IJT-Shia Committee had a long and intensive discussion, and due to Asghar’s shrewd and cool tempered handling, the matter was amicably resolved, getting NSO off the hook. That was the end of our second pragmatic alliance. Exit JA. Now we were waiting for Election Day. The ‘armed struggle’ group had decided that they would resort to violence if they got a faint hint of losing in the poll count. Nobody else knew about these plans until the events unfolded on election night. The entire election campaign proceeded without any violence, and nobody expected any bloodshed on election night. Perhaps it was not meant to be. Election night turned out to be a dark night.

First murder at campus: Assassination of NSO’s activist Barkaat Ahmad

Finally, election day arrived. Polling continued peacefully throughout the day, and no problem was reported from any polling booth. Polling results had to be announced after the final counting at the Senate Hall, Old Campus PU. Early in the evening I started hearing accounts of the IJT and Left activists gathering at Law College and the Old Campus Lawn in a tension gripped atmosphere. I decided to get in touch with our workers and try to defuse the situation. I was directed by the high command to assess the situation and advise our workers to take precautions for their security and safety, and find a nearby place to stay in touch with them. I also heard that things were cooking up at Mukhtar Awan’s official residence for having a violent showdown with the IJT. I first went to Awan’s house. His drawing room was deserted, and there was nobody around. After a long wait Mukhtar Awan showed up and told me that preparations for a collision with the IJT were in full swing, and late in the evening a well equipped group led by actor Iqbal Hasan will come to Bhangian Wali Tope to provide reinforcement. In the meanwhile, a big stack of sticks lies hidden under the fence of Gol Bagh for ‘our’ activists.

I immediately moved to Gol Bagh and tried to contact NSO workers to alert them about the situation. There were many known and unknown faces scattered around the area close to Gol Bagh. Everybody was sniffing everyone else and suspiciously watching every little movement and trying to hear every bit of conversation taking place. A few times I tried to talk to some of the NSO workers privately, but every time a big group would gather around me and make it impossible to have any private conversation. I finally whispered to some of our trusted workers to tell our members to keep away from any violent confrontation. I told them that I shall be in touch with them through a nearby location and try to coordinate between them. The nearest location I could find was the office of Punjab PPP at Mozang Adda, managed by our trusted and dear comrade Yusuf Bhira. Yusuf Bhira extended a warm welcome to me and allowed me to stay in his office as long as I needed. Our trusted members, as well as members of the Professors Group (PG) high command knew about my location and phone number and kept in touch with me for the remainder of the evening and next morning. Sometime after midnight I heard the news of Barkaat’s death in a firing incident. It was like a bombshell. It created chaos, confusion, anger, and panic.

No one had a clear account of the events at that time, and there was no clear thinking on which way to proceed. In consultation with the PG high command and leading NSO members, it was decided that I should relocate to Zaman Khan’s flat near Regal Cinema and ask for a meeting with Governor Khar the next morning to ask for the government’s intervention to initiate due legal action to arrest and punish the killers. Barkaat was a young, idealist NSO worker from Islamia College Civil Lines. He had a working class background. He had actively participated in our election campaign and met me a couple of times in my hostel at New Campus during this period. He was the only brother of his six sisters, and dearest child of his widowed mother. He was also an active member of the PPP. His death was a great tragedy for his family, for all of us, and the people who had personally known him. Barkaat’s assassination set an ugly precedent in student politics. We needed clear thinking, moral courage and cool tempers to deal with this loss and to keep the morale of our supporters high to stand our ground.

Next morning, I and Munawwar Hayat requested a meeting with the Governor. We reached the Governor’s House around 9:30 or 10:00 in the morning. We were kept waiting in different waiting rooms. In the last waiting room, we saw Hamid Jillani already waiting for the meeting with the Governor. Finally I, Munawwar Hayat and Jillani were called to the Governor’s office. Sitting beside the Governor were Hanif Ramay, Chief Secretary and DIG Punjab, Dr Ashiq Baloch, Chairman Statistics Department, and some other officials. Right at the outset we told the Governor that we wanted justice for our slain comrade Barkaat Ahmad. We wanted an FIR to be registered against Barkaat’s murderers and trial of the culprits in a court of law. We also demanded that the election results should be declared null and void and no new elections should be held till the murder case was decided. Hamid Jillani said that he was standing next to Barkaat when he was shot dead. He claimed that actually it was he who was targeted by the IJT, but the bullet hit Barkaat by mistake. Making gestures with his hand Hamid said, “Sir, one bullet passed to my right, one bullet passed to my left,” and as he was sitting on a chair with his legs spread, he said, “And sir, one bullet passed under my legs.” Khar could not digest the last part and said, “Hamid can you repeat what you said?” Hamid responded, without showing even a faint sign of embarrassment: “Sir, I am not kidding.” Khar smiled, as did so many others in the room. Statement closed.

In the end Khar said, “We have heard that both parties are responsible for violence, and the IJT alone cannot be blamed.” He then looked at Dr Ashiq Baloch who endorsed his account. Dr Baloch used to be our staunch supporter, and I was amazed how easily he gave in to the pressure. Then Khar said, “The government cannot take sides with any party, and we have to ensure that justice is done. You should get the FIR registered. We cannot indefinitely postpone the elections. We are sorry to hear about your loss, but there is not much we can do.” We left the Governor’s House, having little hope left in ‘comrade’ Khar’s sense of fairness. For the next few days, I stayed at Zaman Khan’s flat near Regal Cinema.

The mother party decided that a FIR on charges of murder should be registered against Javed Hashmi and his accomplices. Zahid Islam was asked to submit the FIR. One of the persons named in the FIR was Rana Nazr-ur-Rehman, a leading patron of the Democratic Youth Force. A few days after registering the case, Rana Nazr-ur-Rehman and his goons visited Zahid Islam’s house and pressurized him not to follow up on the FIR. Zahid reported the matter in a Student’s Bureau meeting and asked for security arrangements for him and his family. The Party leadership had no answer to the request, and the follow up did not go very far. Meanwhile serious differences emerged between the Party high command on the one hand and the Student and Labour Bureaus on the other. The Student and Labour Bureaus held a joint meeting at Aurangzeb Syed’s house in Model Town, and Professor Azizuddin was invited to respond to their joint questions. Both the Bureaus had major problems with the PG’s ambiguous stand over key political issues like army action in East Pakistan and ambiguous party building policy, especially the whole time engagement of NSO cadre after graduating from universities and the creation of a channel of communication between these two Bureaus and the Party’s central leadership.

The issues could not be resolved, and both the Bureaus split from the mother party. Soon after the split a vicious campaign was started by the PG against all of us, making use of their favourite tool: character assassination. By that time, I had graduated from the university and was living with our comrade Rao Fasahat Ali. The sole purpose of my extended stay was to lead the Left’s joint election campaign against the IJT. A few months earlier Fasahat had stayed in my room when I lived in the prefect’s room in hostel number 2. Subsequently my friend Karim Bakhsh – who used to be one year senior to both me and Javed Hashmi at Government College Multan – lived with me for a couple of months. Karim was highly respected by me and Hashmi. After leaving my room Karim moved to Hashmi’s room in hostel 9, since Hashmi was living in a room in his possession at STC. After the split when I came to Fasahat’s room on a freezing winter night past midnight, Fasahat refused to let me in. He and some other NSO members like Javaid Niaz were briefed by the Professors that I was a revisionist, renegade, and a ‘professional’ student leader, and did not deserve to be kept in any ‘genuine’ member’s room. At that cold and lonely moment, I had no idea where to go. It was a very tense period, and I did not want to disclose my situation to anyone. I did not want to freeze to death in Hostel number 2 corridors. In that desperate moment I thought of Malik Karim Bakhsh. It was a very high risk asking him to let me in. But that was the only choice I was left with. I went and knocked at Karim Bakhsh’s room. He opened the door and warmly let me in. “What is going on?” he said. “Can I stay here for the night?” I asked. “By all means,” Malik responded. “What if Hashmi or any IJT member comes over?” I enquired. “Don’t worry my dear; no one can dare to cross the door. You are under my protection,” said Karim. What an irony. Due to ‘correct handling of the contradictions amongst the people’ by our ‘friends’, I ended up finding shelter in the ‘enemy’ quarter. During the coming days the atmosphere was full of tension, uncertainty, and fear. We feared that if another clash took place, our supporters would be extremely demoralized, and we must avoid a clash at all costs.

(To be continued)