Hassan Nasir

[1][2]

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
This article is about the activist who died in 1960. There is a politician/activist still active who was named after this person.

Hassan Nasir (1928[3] - November 13, 1960[3]) was a Pakistani proletariat leader, Secretary General of the banned Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP) and Office Secretary in the National Awami Party. 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 independence of Pakistan in 1947, 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,[3] 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.[3]

He died while under interrogation in Lahore Fort,[4] 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.[3] The reason was that the government did not want to let remain anything reminding the people of Hassan Nasir.[5] Today, there remains nothing of that cell, where he was killed, except a wall containing a small window.[5]

Hassan Nasir was brought to Lahore Fort's cell on September 13, 1952. On November 13, at 12:40 pm, the Assistant Deputy Inspector General of the Criminal Investigation Department received a call from the line officer at the Lahore Fort that Hassan Nasir was found hanging in cell number 13 at 11:00 am that morning.[2][4] It is claimed that Hassan was succumbed to torture upon orders from the then Inspector General of Police, Khan Qurban Ali Khan, who was sent to exile in 1954.

On December 4, 1960, Hasan Nasir’s mother, Zohra Alambardar Hussein, arrived in Lahore from her home city Hyderabad, India.[2] She witnessed the exhumation of the body in the Miani Sahib Graveyard on December 12, 1960 for the possession. She made a speech at his 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."[1]

The body suffered an advanced stage of decomposition and thus not identifiable. Mrs. Hussein issued a statement at the court that she did not think the body was that of Hasan Nasir’s and refused to take the possession. The Anarkali Police later reburied the body into an unknown grave.[6]

Hassan Nasir was also a revolutionary poet. Today, very few of his verses survive as it is claimed that his writings and records had been destroyed during his custody.

References in literature and popular culture

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Ali, Tariq (2005). Street Fighting Years: An Autobiography of the Sixties. Verso. ISBN 1844670295.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 ASDAR ALI, KAMRAN (2014-01-07). "A century of war, 1914-2014: Pakistan and the Cold War". Dawn. Retrieved 8 January 2014.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Saeed, Shahid (10 February 2011). "Hasan Nasir, 1928-1960". The Friday Times. Retrieved 26 September 2013.
  4. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Nadeem, Naresh (13 March 2005). "Pakistan Diary". People's Democracy 29 (11). Retrieved 26 September 2013.
  5. ↑ Moini, Qasim A. "KARACHI: ‘Bhagat Singh was a Pakistani martyr’". Dawn. Retrieved 26 September 2013.

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