Naseerullah Babar

Naseerullah Khan Babar (Urdu: نصیر اللہ خان بابر; born 1928 – 10 January 2011) was a Pakistani army officer, diplomat, and politician who served as the 28th Interior Minister of Pakistan from 1993 to 1996. A member of the Pakistan Peoples Party, he also served as the 12th Governor of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province between 1975 and 1977. He was a retired 2-star general officer in the Pakistan Army, and later career military officer-turned-statesman. During 1974, Babar was tasked to fund and train Tajik rebels, by the order of Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, to stage uprising against the government of Sardar Mohammed Daoud Khan.

Babar was a collector of antique art and Buddha statues. Before Aziz Deri was declared archeological site in 1996, among others, Naseerullah Babar purchased several artifacts and statues from the area over the years. He kept them at his Peshawar Town residence which were later donated to the state after his death.

Early life and education Babar was born in 1928 in Pirpiai near Pabbi, Nowshera district, North West Frontier Province, British India. His family is from the Babar tribe of Pakhtuns and hails from the village of Pirpiai in district Nowshera.

In the 1971 war, he commanded an artillery brigade supporting 23 Division and later commanded an infantry brigade until he was wounded and evacuated from the battlefield. He also had the distinction of having been awarded SJ & Bar. In 1972, he was appointed Inspector General Frontier Corps. He resigned from the Army in 1974 while commanding an infantry division and was appointed Governor of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. and an armed incursion by Afghan army in the Bajaur Campaign. In 1975, Babar trained rebels staged their first uprising in the Panjshir valley. Ahmad Shah Massoud and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar were among the rebels trained by Babar. The 1975 Panjshir Valley uprising had been described as the first operation conducted by Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) in Afghanistan. The uprising, though unsuccessful, had changed Daoud Khan's ways to put an end to his proxy war against Pakistan.

1997 and onwards After the dismissal of Benazir Bhutto's second government by then President Farooq Leghari, Babar contested the 1997 elections again from Nowshera as well as from Karachi. He lost in Nowshera to Awami National Party candidate Wali Muhammad Khan and in Karachi to Nawaz Sharif's nominee Ejaz Shafi.

Contesting again in the 2002 general elections, he lost in the electoral sweep of the religio-political alliance of Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, mainly due to Musharaff's goals of bringing Islamists in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan to power.

In October 2007, he left the Pakistan Peoples Party due to his disagreement with Benazir Bhutto over her support for General Pervez Musharraf. This action was considered as a major blow for the Pakistan Peoples Party because he was their major political leader in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

Death On 19 August 2008, Naseerullah Babar suffered a mild stroke and was admitted to a hospital. He recovered and returned home in November 2008. Naseerullah Babar died on 10 January 2011. He is buried in the family graveyard in Pirpai, Nowshera district.