Baba Jan (politician)

Baba Jan served 11 years incarceration after being convicted by an anti-terrorism court of participating in a protest against killing of a disaster-affected man and his son by police on August 11, 2011 at Aliabad Hunza.[4] A massive landslide on 4 January 2010 hit Attabad village and blocked Hunza River, forming a 23 km lake which submerged several villages and left over 1,000 people homeless. Baba Jan organized the displaced people to lobby the government for compensation and rehabilitation.[5] While several families were compensated, some 25 families had still not been compensated. On 11 August 2011, some of those families protested by blocking Karakoram Highway (KKH) on which the then Chief Minister of Gilgit-Baltistan Syed Mehdi Shah was due to travel. Police fired teargas and gunshots to disperse the protesters for the Chief Minister's convoy, killing a man and his son. When news of the killings spread through the Hunza Valley, angry protests erupted in many towns in which a number of government buildings and police stations were torched.[6]

Baba Jan was subsequently arrested and tortured,[7] and charged under the Anti-Terrorism Act.[8] In September 2011, an anti-terrorism court sentenced him and eleven other activists to life imprisonment.[9] Human rights organizations have demanded Baba Jan's release,[10] and an international petition for his release has been signed by Noam Chomsky, Tariq Ali, David Graeber, and several others.[11][12] During his time in prison, it has been reported that Baba Jan has been involved in organizing prisoners and promoting sectarian tolerance between Sunnis and Shias.[13]

Despite his incarceration, he contested for a seat in the 2015 Gilgit-Baltistan Legislative Assembly elections as the Awami Workers Party's candidate for Constituency GBLA-6. He came in second place, losing out to Mir Ghazanfar Ali Khan of Hunza's ruling family, who was backed by the party of Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif, the Pakistan Muslim League (N). However Baba Jan garnered more votes than the other mainstream parties, including the Pakistan Peoples Party and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf.

In November 2015, Mir Ghazanfar Ali Khan was appointed by the Pakistani prime minister as the Governor of Gilgit-Baltistan,[14] which made the GBLA-6 seat vacant. The by-election for the seat were scheduled for 28 May 2016 and the Awami Workers Party announced that Jan would again be its candidate for the constituency. On 30 April 2016, the returning officer rejected Jan's nominations papers on the grounds of being a convict serving a jail term.[15] However, on 4 May 2016, a court accepted an appeal filed by Jan's lawyers against the rejection of his nomination papers and allowed him to contest by-polls.[16]

The supreme appellate court of Gilgit-Baltistan postponed the election for a period of three weeks to complete hearing of two cases pending charged against Jan.[17] The supreme appellate court upheld the ATC verdict, thus forcing Jan out of the 2016 Hunza by-elections.[18] In the 2020 GB Elections, the AWP GB once again submitted papers of Jan as primary candidate and the young leader Asif Saeed Sakhi as Jan's covering candidate for the GBA-6 Hunza seat. Jan’s candidature was rejected and Asif Saeed contested the election on AWP ticket. Saeed got 2,629 votes and came 5th in the November 15 polls.

Jan and the other 13 people incarcerated for the 2011 Aliabad incident were finally released on or before 27 November, 2020. Jan, Iftikhar Hussain and Shukoorullah Baig were the last to be released, the eleven others were released in October or November the same year.[19] The release was made possible due to a seven day sit-in by the families of the prisoners at Aliabad, Hunza. The sit-in satrted on October 4 at the College Chowk in Aliabad, the families demanded the release of the 14 incarcerated men saying the terrorism charges on them were false and the prisoners were punished for raising their voice for the rights of victims of Atabad disaster. [20] The sit-in continued for seven days, on the seventh day the GB interim government held talks with the families of the incarcerated men and assured them that the prisoners will be released before November 30, 2020. [21]