PESHAWAR – Former interior minister and founding member of the Pakistan People’s Party, Maj Gen (r) Naseerullah Khan Babar died on Monday after two-and-a-half years of protracted illness.
He was laid to rest at his native graveyard in Pirpai, Nowshera.
Political leaders of various parties including Jamaat-e-Islami former chief Qazi Hussain Ahmad, JUI-S chief Samiul Haq, ANP central leader and Railways Minister Ghulam Ahmad Bilour and PPP senior provincial minister Rahim Dad Khan attended his funeral.
Babar was a close aide of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and served as special adviser to former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and interior minister during 1993-96. The Afghan Taliban is said to be Babar’s brainchild. However, no central leader or top government functionary from the PPP attended his funeral to pay homage to the PPP veteran. Babar was born in Pirpai in 1928 and joined the Pakistan Army soon after independence.
He was conferred with many awards for his services. He left the army to join PPP in 1967 and had also served as the governor of the then NWFP (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) during 1975-77.But he shot to fame with the emergence of the Afghan Taliban and it was commonly believed that Gen Babar was the man behind the formation of this new force. Many of his supporters and lovers also remembered him clearing Karachi of criminals and gangs, but some political parties from Karachi, including the MQM did not like his operation clean-up and alleged him of killing their workers.
