Liaquat Ali Khan

Liaquat Ali Khan (1 October 1895 – 16 October 1951) was a Pakistani lawyer, politician and statesman who served as the first prime minister of Pakistan from 1947 until his assassination in 1951. He played a key role in consolidating the state of Pakistan, much as Muhammad Ali Jinnah did in founding it. A leading figure in the Pakistan Movement, he is revered as Quaid-e-Millat ("Leader of the Nation") and Shaheed-e-Millat ("Martyr of the Nation").

Khan was born in Karnal, Haryana, to a wealthy Rajput family. His grandfather, Nawab Ahmad Ali, provided significant support to the British during the Mutiny uprising of 1857–1858, earning him substantial rewards in the form of prestigious honours and complete remission of rent. Khan was educated at the Aligarh Muslim University and the University of Oxford. After first being invited to the Indian National Congress, he later opted to join the All-India Muslim League led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, an Indian independence activist who later advocated for a separate Muslim nation-state out of Hindu-majority India. Khan assisted Jinnah in the campaign for what would become known as the Pakistan Movement and was known as his 'right hand'. He was a democratic political theorist who promoted parliamentarism in British India.

Khan's premiership oversaw the beginning of the Cold War, in which Khan's foreign policy sided with the United States-led Western Bloc over the Soviet Union-led Eastern Bloc. He promulgated the Objectives Resolution in 1949, which stipulated Pakistan to be an Islamic democracy. He also held cabinet portfolio as the first foreign minister, defence minister, and frontier regions minister from 1947 until his assassination in 1951. Prior to the part, Khan briefly tenured as Finance minister of British India in the Interim Government that undertook independence of Pakistan and India, led by Louis Mountbatten, the then-Viceroy of India. In March 1951, he survived an attempted coup by left-wing political opponents and segments of the Pakistani military. While delivering a speech in the Company Bagh of Rawalpindi, Khan was shot dead by an Afghan militant Said Akbar for unknown reasons.