| Hassan Nasir حسن ناصر |
|
|---|---|
| Personal details | |
| Born | January 1, 1928 |
| Died | November 13, 1960 (aged 32) Lahore, Pakistan |
| Nationality | Pakistan |
| Occupation | Proletariat Leader |
| Religion | Islam |
Hassan Nasir(1928 - November 13, 1960) was a Pakistani proletariat leader and Secretary General of the banned Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP). Hasan Nasir belonged to Hyderabad (Deccan) and had fought, along with Makhdoom Mohiuddin and others, in the Telangana armed struggle. He was a maternal grandson of Nawab Mohsin-ul-Mulk. After the Partition of British India, he migrated to Pakistan and soon became, to the new ruling classes of the country, one of the most feared communists in Pakistan. Thus, despite being the scion of an aristocratic family of Hyderabad, Deccan, he had taken up the cause of the oppressed. He was arrested in 1960, put in a cell in the Lahore Fort and brutally tortured till he died.
He died while under interrogation in Lahore Fort, a detention centre used by the British during The Raj in India. After his murder his mangled body was hastily buried by the police. The reports of torture were frightening and succeeded in halting the protests for several months. There was such a fervor over his martyrdom that the President Ayub Khan government had to exhume his body to try to prove the prosecution point that he had committed suicide and was not killed. The reason was that the government did not want to let remain anything reminding the people of Hasan Nasir. Today, there remains nothing of that cell, where he was killed, except a wall containing a small window. Since Hassan Nasir was a left-wing student leader he remains a youth hero in Pakistan to this day.
After Nasir’s death, his old mother, who had come from India for the burial, had made a speech at the graveside. ‘He died for a good cause,’ she had said as the tears poured down her face, ‘but I know I have many more sons who will carry on the fight for which Hassan Nasir gave up his life.’
Hassan Nasir was not just a leader but was also a revolutionary poet. His poetry, and all other records belonging to him, had been wasted by the Pakistani agencies. Today, very few of his verses survive.
Hasan Nasir was brought to Lahore Fort's cell on September 13, 1952. He was murdered in cell number 13 of the Fort. It is said that Hasan Nasir’s torture unto death was ordered by the then Inspector General of Police, Khan Qurban Ali Khan. Latter on, in 1954 he was sent to exile.
It was November 13, 1960, when he was tortured and brutally murdered by the state police of Pakistan. He is 'interred in an unknown grave somewhere in the Punjab capital'.