LAHORE: The 61-acre mausoleum of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah at Karachi’s famous M.A. Jinnah Road, the site where Imran Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf succeeded in staging a momentous public rally last night, is also the resting place of Pakistan’s two former Premiers Liaquat Ali Khan and Nurul Amin, one governor Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar and the Quaid’s younger sister, Fatima Jinnah.
All these graves are made of Italian white marble.
Liaquat Ali Khan (1895-1951) was appointed as the first prime minister of the country on August 14, 1947. He was also the first finance minister of India in the interim government of British India prior to partition.
Nurul Amin (1893-1974) had served as the 8th prime minister of Pakistan and the only vice president of Pakistan from 1970 till 1971.
The Peshawar-born Sardar Abdur Rab Nishtar (1899-1958) had served as the second governor of Punjab between August 2, 1949 and November 24, 1951, when Liaquat Ali Khan was calling shots as country’s Premier and Khawaja Nazimuddin was running the nation’s affairs as Governor General.
Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah (1893-1967), the younger sister of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, was a leading female woman figure in the Pakistan Movement.
Also known as Madar-e-Millat (Mother of the Nation), Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah was the country’s Opposition leader between January 1, 1960 and July 9, 1967, having opposed Field Marshal Ayub Khan’s dictatorship tooth and nail during all these years, and then going on to contest the rigged 1965 presidential election against the military ruler.
Archives reveal that on July 31, 1960, the then Pakistani President Ayub Khan had laid the foundation stone of the mausoleum of Quaid-e-Azam.
Meanwhile, the government of Azad Kashmir had provided wood for the construction of the burial chamber of the Pakistani founder. Archives further reveal that an architect named Yahya Merchant prepared the design of this iconic symbol of Karachi.
The structure is made of white marble with curved Moorish arches and copper grills reset on an elevated 54 square meters platform. The Quaid’s mausoleum is placed in a 53-hectare park.
