Abdul Hamid Khan

Abdul Hamid Khan is chairman of the Balawaristan National Front (BNF), a nationalist political party of Gilgit-Baltistan, the Northern Areas of Pakistan. Along with his friends, Nawaz Khan Naji, Mohammad Rafiq and Shujaat Ali, Abdul Hamid Khan established BNF on July 30 1992 and started a political struggle for the human and political rights of the deprived people of Gilgit-Baltistan. But, in the depoliticized region the bureaucratic establishment he faced many difficulties. In a website he says,

“I was mentally shocked and my conscious shook when Pakistani and Afghan terrorists attacked our brothers (Shia Muslims) by using the name of religion in 1988 during General Zia’s regime, otherwise I was sympathizer and worker of Pakistani parties like Tehrik-e-Istiqlal. I was supporer of Nizam- e-Mustafa campaign in 1977 against Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto." [http://www.balawaristan.net/hamid.htm]

Abdul Hamid Khan was born on July 10 1953, in Bahrkohlti, a small village of Yasin in the Ghizer district. His opponents accuse him as a lackey of the former despotic ruling families, known as Mir or Raja. He has remained a sympathizer of them, who were dismissed from their years of despotic rule in 1974 by the then Pakistani prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.

External links

* [http://www.hamidkhan.org/ Khalid Hamid Khan]
* [http://www.balawaristan.net Balawaristan National Front]
* [http://www.saag.org/papers7/paper614.html South Asia Analysis Group]
* [http://www.dawn.com/events/lifestyle2002/ls16.htm The Changing Northern Areas] dead link|date=January 2008|url=http://www.dawn.com/events/lifestyle2002/ls16.htm
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1491179.stm Pakistan's Northern Areas dilemma]
* [http://www.northernareas.org.pk Northern Areas Development Gateway]
* [http://paknews.com/articles.php?id=1&date1=2003-04-17 Pakistan's Northern Areas]
* [http://www.monitor.net/~jmko/karakoram/about-kh.htm Northern Pakistan's Karakoram & Hindukush Mountains]
* [http://www.macp-pk.org/home.asp The Mountain Areas Conservancy Project]
* [http://www.geocities.com/johnmap2001/kkh/maps/gilgit.html Gilgit Map]
* [http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_23-9-2004_pg3_6 Not ‘Mir of Hunza’]