Usman Kakar

Muhammad Usman Khan Kakar (عثمان کاکړ; ), also known as Usman Lala (عثمان لالا), was a Pakistani politician and senator of the Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PMAP).

He was an activist in the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM).

Usman was born in 1961 in Hindu Bagh (now known as Muslim Bagh), Killa Saifullah District, and belonged to the Kakar Pashtun tribe.

His father, Sardar Abdul Qayyum Khan Kakar, was a tribal elder.

Usman Kakar received his primary education at a local school in Hindu Bagh (now known as Muslim Bagh).

After matriculating from Islamia School in Quetta, he obtained a diploma in engineering from Bahawalpur.

After completing his BSc from Science College, he obtained his MA in Economics from the University of Balochistan.

Kakar became politically active in 1977 and joined the Pashtun Students Organisation of the Pashtunkhwa National Awami Party (PNAP).

Kakar played an active role not only at the level of his party, but also in other political movements, including the Pakistan Oppressed Nations Movement (PONM) and the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD), the latter of which was formed in the 1980s to end the military regime of General Zia-ul-Haq.

In 1983, the Pashtun Students Organisation merged with the Frontier Students Federation, a student wing of the Mazdoor Kisan Party (MKP), resulting in the formation of a new student organization that was named the Pashtunkhwa Students Organization (PSO).

Kakar was also a member of the central council of the Pashtunkhwa National People’s Alliance, which was formed in 1986 when the PNAP (of Mahmood Khan Achakzai) and the Pakhtunkhwa Mazdoor Kisan Party (PMKP, of Sher Ali Bacha) reached an agreement.

He received the degree of Bachelor of Laws from Law College Quetta in 1987.

Kakar was elected the first secretary of the Pashtunkhwa Students Organization during its maiden conference in 1987 in Peshawar.

As a result of this alliance, the Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PMAP) was created in March 1989 at a meeting in Quetta, and Kakar was elected as the senior secretary of PMAP.

In 2007, he was elected as PMAP's provincial president.

He was also elected as the central secretary during the party's fourth congress in 2013, in addition to his role as the provincial president.

He was a member of the Senate of Pakistan from 2015 to 2021.

Kakar died on 21 June 2021 in Karachi from a head injury he had mysteriously sustained four days earlier at his home in Quetta.

His family, as well as several politicians and activists, claimed that he was murdered and demanded an inquiry.

According to his postmortem report, which detected no marks of violence on any part of his body, the cause of his death would emerge in the chemical and histopathology report for which samples had been collected.

On 1 July, the Government of Balochistan formed a judicial commission to investigate his death, but it was abolished without any result after a month.

On 14 March 2022, the Pashtun National Jirga in Bannu demanded that Kakar's death be investigated by a credible judicial commission headed by Justice Qazi Faez Isa, and that the report be made public.

Kakar was elected to the Senate of Pakistan as a candidate of PMAP in the 2015 Pakistani Senate election.

Kakar was an activist in the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) since its emergence in 2018 and participated in its protests and gatherings.

He ran for the post of the Deputy Chairman of the Senate of Pakistan as a candidate of PMAP in March 2018.

He was unsuccessful and lost the office to a candidate of the Pakistan Peoples Party, Saleem Mandviwalla, who got 54 votes and who was supported by the joint opposition.

Kakar received 44 votes and was supported by the Pakistan Muslim League (N), the ruling party.

In his last Senate speech, the video of which went viral after he lost consciousness due to head injury, Kakar spoke about the threats he had been getting, but the government ignored the warnings regarding the dangers to his life.

In his speech, Kakar said, "I would like to say something personal that I have not said in six years. We are being pressured to abandon democracy and our ideology, to stop talking about the multiple nations, to stop talking about the supremacy of parliament, and to stop criticising the undemocratic forces, but I cannot do this. I do not care if something happens to me, my children, or my family, because I cherish my ideology, democracy, my nation, and the supremacy of parliament. However, I want to put it on record that if something happens to me or my family, it will be the responsibility of the two intelligence agencies [ISI and MI]."

On 17 June 2021, Kakar was found lying unconscious on a carpet at his home in Quetta's Shahbaz Town, with blood flowing from his head.

His close relative and PMAP provincial deputy secretary, Muhammad Yusuf Khan Kakar, told the BBC that Usman Kakar was healthy, and had returned home from PMAP office on Quetta's Jinnah Road at 3pm the same day.

He had travelled with his bodyguard, who returned to the party office after reaching Usman Kakar's home.

Yusuf added that when Usman Kakar was at home, there was no one in his house except his 11-year-old daughter and a woman.

Usman Kakar and his daughter were in the lower part of the house while the woman was on the upper floor, but his daughter was not with him when Usman Kakar went to rest in a room, after which he sustained the head injury and lost consciousness.

Within 30 minutes, Kakar was shifted to a private hospital in Quetta where he underwent emergency head surgery and was put on a ventilator.

When a part of his head was shaved for the operation, his head was found to be swollen and injured.

The CT scan showed that there was a blood clot in his head and his condition was gradually deteriorating.

He did not regain consciousness, and was later shifted on an air ambulance to the Aga Khan University Hospital in Karachi by the Government of Sindh on the instructions of Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, where he died on 21 June because of accumulation of blood in his brain due to the head injury.

Kakar's family and some politicians claimed that there might be foul play behind Kakar's death.

Muhammad Yusuf Khan Kakar, as well as Usman Kakar's son Khushal Kakar, claimed that he was attacked by people who entered the house from outside when he was alone in the room.