Activist Mohammad Asghar Makhdumi who said ‘Welcome to Quaid-e-Azam’

Tehreek-e-Pakistan activist Muhammad Asghar Makhdumi became a part of the struggle for the establishment of Pakistan in his student days.

He was fond of collecting stamps, coins and currency notes from his childhood due to which he has almost all the stamps, coins and currency notes issued before and since the creation of Pakistan.

At this time, he is more than 90 years old, but he still remembers the early years of Tehreek Pakistan and the establishment of Pakistan as if it were yesterday.

Muhammad Asghar Makhdumi, who was born in Amritsar on February 11, 1932, came to Lahore along with his family after the establishment of Pakistan and has been living in Faisalabad since 1959.

He got the chance to see Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah for the first time in 1942 when he visited Amritsar to organize the Muslim League.

“The Quaid-e-Azam has passed through Amritsar to go to his meeting, so the headmaster told us that our first Muslim leader is coming and we have to welcome him. We welcomed them in 1942.’

Later he became a part of the Muslim Students Federation and worked day and night for the success of the Muslim League in the 1946 elections.

According to Asghar Makhdumi, he got the news of the creation of Pakistan from his father’s mouth, but at that time the situation was so bad that he could not celebrate the success of the struggle for the creation of Pakistan.

Amritsar was in Pakistan when it was announced to become Pakistan, but when the Radcliffe Award was given, it was taught. When these situations happened, father said that we will stay here, you pretend that Taya lives in Lahore, you all go there, we don’t know what the situation is.’

According to Asghar Makhdumi, all the passengers in the train which went from Amritsar to Lahore on August 14 were killed on the way.

He says, ‘I am an eye witness because we saw dead bodies in the train that came out of Amritsar on August 15. Our vehicle was fired upon by a group of Sikhs, when the firing took place, the first unit of the army was with us, when they fired, the attackers were injured and fled. Therefore, on August 15, our train has arrived in Lahore in the right condition.

He says that despite going through these sufferings, the Muslims were happy that the Quaid-e-Azam had done what he said and they got their country, but they also regretted that due to the partition, those who had lived together for many centuries were separated. Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims became enemies of each other.

“We used to live together but when Pakistan was declared, the same Hindus and Sikhs who lived with us burnt our house on August 17 or 18, 1947 and my father went to the camp.”

According to Asghar Makhdumi, after coming to Pakistan, he entered Muslim Modern High School, Lahore, where students were also given military training as a second line of defense.

It had been six months since the formation of Pakistan that the soldier who used to train us said on April 20 that the first anniversary of Allama Iqbal is coming on April 21 after the formation of Pakistan why don’t we salute him.

He says that ‘on that day, when all the students of the school left the school with guns on their shoulders and passed in front of the Data Darbar, the people of Lahore were worried and gathered that the war had not been broken out.’

“We went to Allama Iqbal’s shrine and it was locked and there was only a watchman. When the watchman opened the door, we gave the first salute to Allama Iqbal from where the government got the idea.

According to Asghar Makhdumi, in 1949, when the army planned to build the BRB canal as a third defense line, boys from his Dayal Singh College and Islamia College volunteered for it.

‘When hoes were hammered and earth was lifted to deepen the canal, they chanted to create enthusiasm, Ble Bhai Ble, Dheela Nain Playa.’

“Ble Bhai Ble” meant that we are making such a big project and Dhila Nayen Playa meant that we don’t have a single penny in our coffers but we are making this crores of rupees project for free.

After living in Lahore for a decade and completing his education, he got a job in the Foreign Exchange Department of the Imperial Bank of India and in 1959 he came to Faisalabad permanently along with his wife and children.

Meanwhile, when Lyallpur was renamed as Faisalabad on September 1, 1977, 18 years had passed since he settled here.

He states that the change of the city’s name was happily accepted by the majority of the local people and it was their demand that ‘Shah Faisal had done more to unite the Muslims, so the name of Lyallpur should be changed to Faisalabad. To be given. No one told us that it should be his first name, but Shah Faisal is dearer to us than that. Therefore, Shah Faisalabad was first named, but then it was named Faisalabad.

They say that Faisalabad is a good name and people here like it, so they are not in favor of changing it to Lyallpur again.

‘Mentally most of us are of the religious type here, though remember the name, our museum which is called the Lyallpur Museum. They keep the name Lyallpur, but we do not want to change the name of the city.’

“Because we don’t want to forget the reward that Shah Faisal has given us, so that our future generations will also remember them.”