PESHAWAR: Noted banker Mohammad Saleem Jan, who is the grandson of legendary freedom fighter Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan and cousin of Awami National Party (ANP) President Asfandyar Wali Khan, has decided to join the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI). Talking to The News, he said he would formally join the PTI during Imran Khan’s visit to his University Town, Peshawar residence on November 25. “I have invited Imran Khan for lunch and also for announcing my decision at a press conference to join his party,” he added. When asked as to why he preferred Imran Khan’s PTI over the ANP, Saleem Jan argued that the kind of nationwide problems and challenges facing Pakistan could only be tackled by a political party operating at the national level instead of one working regionally. “Imran Khan is the only credible politician on the horizon. Others have all been tried and found wanting,” he contended. Continuing, Saleem Jan said the option of joining the ANP or its predecessor nationalist parties was available to him all his life. “Perhaps 20 years ago I would have joined the ANP, but at the time I wasn’t interested in politics. Now I want to enter politics not for the sake of any position, but to offer my services, expertise and experience for national rather than personal interest,” he argued. “I think he knows about it!” remarked Saleem Jan in reply to a question whether he had consulted Asfandyar Wali before deciding to join the PTI. He then hastened to add that he had not consulted Asfandyar Wali. “You know Asfandyar is like a brother to me. He is one-and-a-half year younger than me and is the son of my maternal uncle Khan Abdul Wali Khan,” he added while trying to explain their close family and personal relationship. Saleem Jan is the son of late Mohammad Yahya Jan, who was married to the daughter of the Khudai Khidmatgar movement founder Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, commonly known as Bacha Khan, and the sister of late ANP leader Abdul Wali Khan, popular Pashto poet Abdul Ghani Khan and educationist Abdul Ali Khan. Yahya Jan was primarily an educationist, though he later drifted into politics. He headed Peshawar city’s first Muslim school, Islamia High School. He was elected to the NWFP Assembly in the 1946 general election from the Peshawar city constituency and served as the education minister in Chief Minister Dr Khan Sahib’s cabinet. Saleem Jan’s paternal grandfather, Haji Ghulam Samdani, was a leading Peshawar businessman and philanthropist. His haveli was located in the Kohati Gate in the old city. He was buried in the well-known Qasim Ali Khan mosque located in the Qissa Khwani bazaar. Though Saleem Jan belonged to an important political and business family of Peshawar, he has never been the member of any party. His close ties to the family of late Bacha Khan also couldn’t pull him towards politics. But cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan has finally inspired him to join politics. Saleem Jan appeared keen to distance himself from the crowd of politicians lining up to join the PTI in the wake of the party’s massive show of strength at the Iqbal Park, Lahore on October 30. “Unlike other people, I wasn’t motivated by the big PTI public meeting in Lahore to align myself with Imran Khan. In fact, I was in touch with him since almost three months and had already made up my mind to join the PTI,” he explained. Saleem Jan has 37 years of banking experience. He started his career at the Grindlays Bank in 1968 and served in Bahrain, New York, the UAE and the UK before returning to Pakistan to help set up the Union Bank Limited as its chief executive officer and president. He was appointed the chief executive officer and managing director of The Bank of Punjab in March 2000 and served there until May 2003.
