Usman Kakar

Muhammad Usman Khan Kakar (; also known as Usman Lala , was a Pashtun politician affiliated with the Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PMAP) and a Pashtun Tahafuz Movement activist. He was a member of the Senate of Pakistan from 2015 to 2021.

Kakar died on 21 June 2021 in Karachi from a head injury he had mysteriously sustained four days earlier at his home in Quetta. On 14 March 2022, the Pashtun National Jirga in Bannu demanded that Kakar's death be investigated by a credible judicial commission headed by Justice Qazi Faez Isa, and the report be made public.

Early life and education Usman was born in 1961 in Hindu Bagh (now known as Muslim Bagh), Killa Saifullah District, and belonged to the Kakar Pashtun tribe. His father, Sardar Abdul Qayyum Khan Kakar, was a tribal elder. He received the degree of Bachelor of Laws from Law College Quetta in 1987. and Kakar was elected as the senior secretary of PMAP. In 2007, he was elected as PMAP's provincial president. He was also elected as the central secretary during the party's fourth congress in 2013, in addition to his role as the provincial president.

He ran for the post of the Deputy Chairman of the Senate of Pakistan as a candidate of PMAP in March 2018. He was unsuccessful and lost the office to a candidate of the Pakistan Peoples Party, Saleem Mandviwalla, who got 54 votes and who was supported by the joint opposition. Kakar received 44 votes and was supported by the Pakistan Muslim League (N), the ruling party.

In his last Senate speech, the video of which went viral after he lost consciousness due to head injury, Kakar spoke about the threats he had been getting, but the government ignored the warnings regarding the dangers to his life. He did not regain consciousness, and was later shifted on an air ambulance to the Aga Khan University Hospital in Karachi by the Government of Sindh on the instructions of Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, where he died on 21 June because of accumulation of blood in his brain due to the head injury. Muhammad Yusuf Khan Kakar, as well as Usman Kakar's son Khushal Kakar, claimed that he was attacked by people who entered the house from outside when he was alone in the room. "It seemed that he was grabbed by one person and hit on the head," Khushal Kakar added.

Funeral prayers Islamic funeral prayers were performed for Kakar first at Bagh-e-Jinnah, Karachi on 21 June, and then in his hometown, Muslim Bagh, on 23 June, after which he was buried in the cemetery that was named after him as he had donated the land for it. His funerals were attended by tens of thousands of mourners, including leaders and activists of various political parties. His funeral in Muslim Bagh, which was led by Maulana Atta Ur Rehman (brother of Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman), was the biggest in the history of the Pashtun-populated areas of Balochistan.

As his dead body was being transported from Karachi to Quetta and Muslim Bagh, a large number of Baloch and Pashtun people, including political workers, came out to pay their respects and showered flower petals on his vehicle at various places along the road.

Absentee funeral prayers were performed for Kakar in many cities and towns of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other countries, including Quetta, Peshawar, Mingora (Swat), Kabul, Jalalabad, Islamabad, Khushab, Faisalabad, and at several universities in Punjab. In Kandahar, a funeral prayer and a fatiha ceremony was held for him at Kirka Sharif (Shrine of the Cloak).

Responsibility Members of the Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party, including Khushal Kakar, the son of Usman Kakar, called the death an "assassination" and blamed the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Military Intelligence (MI), the two intelligence agencies of Pakistan, for the alleged murder.

Ehsanullah Ehsan, a former spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban (Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP), responded to a journalist's Facebook post by saying that Usman Kakar had not died a natural death, but had been killed, and that Ehsanullah Ehsan was given a hit list in the past that included the name of Usman Kakar. He added the list also included the names of Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) leader Said Alam and politician Afrasiab Khattak. Ehsanullah Ehsan's allegations deeply worried many Pashtun nationalist politicians and activists, who called on the government to conduct a full investigation into the cause of Kakar's death. "Some local and foreign journalists confirmed that the Facebook account belongs to Ehsanullah Ehsan, a former spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban and Jamaat-ul-Ahrar," Said Alam told Deutsche Welle.

Investigation The postmortem report said there were no marks of violence on any part of his body and that he died due to brain hemorrhage. However, the report did not conclusively provide a cause of death, and said the cause of death would emerge in the chemical and histopathology report for which samples had been collected.

Dr Summaiya Syed, additional police surgeon at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre in Karachi, said, "the alleged head injury could not be commented upon because of the surgical procedures carried out during life. However, CT scans, both antemortem and postmortem, are available while hospital records and reports for chemical analysis and histopathology are awaited."

Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Foreign Minister Haneef Atmar, National Security Adviser Hamdullah Mohib, and Border and Tribal Affairs Minister Mohibullah Samim also called Kakar's death a great loss, hailing him as the voice of Afghans, especially Pashtuns. Hamdullah Mohib said, "although Usman Kakar's void will not be filled, the path of his aspirations and hopes will never be empty."

Members of the Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party, including Khushal Kakar, the son of Usman Kakar, called the death a murder and blamed the intelligence agencies of Pakistan. Khushal Kakar added that he was told by the doctors that Usman Kakar had a severe head injury and it could not be due to falling down. Mahmood Khan Achakzai, chairman of the PMAP, said, "if anyone can do justice, we can tell them how Usman Khan Kakar received threats and how people entered his house and attacked him." On the other hand, Balochistan Home Minister Mir Ziaullah Langau told the PMAP and Usman Kakar's family that the government was ready to cooperate with them in the investigation.

Maryam Nawaz, Vice President of the Pakistan Muslim League (N), praised Kakar as "a strong voice of democracy and a front line soldier of the struggle for civilian supremacy." She added that the "memory of his struggle would be kept alive." Saleem Mandviwalla of the Pakistan Peoples Party, the deputy chairman of the Senate of Pakistan, said "doctors were also skeptical about how such profuse bleeding in the head could be caused by a mere fall." Shahadat Awan of the Pakistan Peoples Party and Muhammad Akram of the National Party raised their doubts that there might be foul play behind the "sudden death."

Senators Maulana Atta-ur-Rehman and Kamran Murtaza of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (F) also said that the nature of the death raised questions. "[Kakar] had received several threats in the past, and now his death is shrouded in mystery," Atta-ur-Rehman said. Hidayat Ullah Khan of the Awami National Party and Manzoor Pashteen and Mohsin Dawar of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement also voiced their concerns and demanded for a complete investigation. According to Mohsin Dawar, the head injury was "too severe to result from a fall."