Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao
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Major (Rtd.) Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao (August 20, 1944) is the head of Pakistan Peoples Party (Sherpao Group) and is the current Pakistani Federal Interior Minister in the cabinet of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz . Prior to this assignment he was working as the Federal Minister for Water and Power (WAPDA).
Aftab was educated at Edwards College, Peshawar and Pakistan Military Academy, Kakul, Abbottabad. After passing out from Pakistan Military Academy with 34th Long Course in 1965, he joined Armoured Corps in the Probya's Horse Battalion. Over a period of 12 years he rose to the rank of Major. It was after the unfortunate assasination of his elder brother Hayat Muhammad Khan Sherpao in a bomb blast in 1975 that Aftab jumped into the political arena. The then Prime Minster of Pakistan Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto asked him to take an early retirement from his military career and afterwards nominated him as PPP’s provincial vice-president. Aftab Khan was thus a stalwart of the original unified Pakistan Peoples Party from NWFP Province of Pakistan.
After the death of his political mentor Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto he wholeheartedly supported his daughter Benazir Bhutto and her struggle against the military dictatorship of General Zia-ul-Haq. He was a key political figure of MRD from NWFP. It was in 1988 elections to the Provincial Assembly that he orchestrated the downfall of the establishment backed PML and became the Chief Minister of the province. He took an extra-nationalist line to appease the nationalist forces, hostile to his party and thus broadened his political base in their stronghold areas. He was once again elected as the Chief Minister of NWFP in 1994. However, in the md nintees he developed serious differences with Benazir Bhutto when Maj-Gen Naseerullah Babar mistakenly suspected his role in undercutting him through allotment of party tickets in Nowshehra. Finally leading to the formation of his own faction of the party called PPP (Sherpao). He fled Pakistan to Britain after the military came to power in 2002 amidst charges of corruption against him. Eventually he returned prior to the 2002 elections and after striking an electoral alliance with the religo-political parties he was elected to both the provincial and national assemblies and his party performed relatively well amidst the rout of his former party and the Muslim leage in the frontier.
Siding with Musharraf after the 2002 elections he was rewarded by being appointed as federal minister for Water and power, and subsequently as Federal interior Minister he has been a prominent figure due to terrorism attacks and fighting in the tribal areas as well as Balochistan.
Aftab's family tree and cross-marriages in other influential families has given him a unique edge over his political opponents. His elder brother, Wali Mohammad Khan, was related to the former President of Pakistan Sardar Farooq Ahmed Khan Leghari. He himself is the son-in-law of Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar. His elder son, Sikandar Sherpao, has already jumped into the Provincial Politics and is a member of the Provincial Assembly.
