Ihsan Khan

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Ihsan Khan is Nazim of Batagram town located in Batagram District, NWFP, Pakistan. He is a citizen of both the United States and Pakistan.

Ihsan Khan left Batagram for US in 1997, when he was 19^[1]. He earned a political science degree from the Northern Illinois University, where he met his first wife, a Christian. They had one child, but the marriage didn't last long^[2]. Khan then moved to Washington, D.C., where he worked as a security guard and cab-driver for about 20 years^[3]. He often used to returned to Pakistan for months. On one trip, he remarried and later fathered two more children, who remained in Batagram.

In November 2001, he became a multimillionaire after winning a $55.2 million Powerball jackpot. Khan chose a lump-sum award of $32,499,939.24, which after taxes worked out to about $18 million^[2]. He bought himself a Mercedes 600, and two million dollar mansions in Virginia and Islamabad^[3].

He returned to his hometown district, Batagram, and stood for the election for the post of district's Nazim. An outspoken critic of the local government and the Pakistani Army, he spent his own money campaigning and won the elections, defeating an incumbent whose family had been involved in local politics for 45 years. Just two days after he was elected the Nazim, the devastating 2005 Kashmir earthquake happened.

As of 2006, the 47-year-old Khan is trying to rebuild the entire district of Batagram, where 4,500 people died in the quake. He said he has already spent about $300,000 of his own money on drugs and medical supplies for survivors and tin roofs for shelters^[3]. He is paying to send some local young people to college. Khan also plans to build a school, to be named for his late mother. He is not taking a government salary^[2].

Disgusted with corruption, few days after becoming the Nazim, he dismissed the town's police chief and fired another official^[2].