On Tuesday, October 16, 1951, at approximately 4 pm, Pakistan’s first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, was preparing to address a public gathering at Company Garden in Rawalpindi. As he approached the microphone and began his speech with the words “Baraadaraan-i-Millat” (Brothers of the Nation), a man named Said Akbar, seated near the dais, fired two shots in quick succession from a 9mm semi-automatic pistol.
Panic immediately engulfed the venue. Khan Najaf Khan, the Deputy Superintendent of Police who had personally overseen the security arrangements, shouted in Pashto, “Who fired the shots? Shoot him!” Moments later, Police Inspector Mohammad Shah rushed forward, drew his service revolver, and fired five shots at Said Akbar at close range, missing one in the confusion.
As Said Akbar lay critically wounded, he was further attacked by Muslim League volunteers, who stabbed him more than 26 times with spears. Radio Pakistan’s recording equipment captured the sound of the gunfire and the ensuing turmoil for one minute and 13 seconds before going silent. The entire incident unfolded in just 48 seconds. The recording remains available online. Liaquat Ali Khan was rushed to the Combined Military Hospital, where he later died from his injuries.
The assassin, Said Akbar, was the author’s father, who had traveled to Rawalpindi from Abbottabad on October 14.
Seventy-four years after the assassination of one of Pakistan’s founding fathers and its first prime minister, the case remains unresolved. Despite an official Inquiry Commission and two separate police investigations — including one conducted by Scotland Yard — no conclusive explanation has ever emerged. Now, the assassin’s son has undertaken his own investigation, presenting his findings in a book that, for the first time, offers his family’s perspective while critically examining the flaws in official narratives. The work also situates the assassination within Pakistan’s turbulent early years, touching on events such as the first Kashmir war, the Rawalpindi Conspiracy, and internal conflicts within the newly formed state. Eos presents excerpts from The Assassination of Liaquat Ali Khan: 1947–1952 by Farooq Babrakzai, published by Vanguard Books, with permission.
