Sayyid Akbar

Sayyid Akbar (c. 1921 or 1922 – 16 October 1951) was an Afghan national who was the assassin of Liaquat Ali Khan, the first prime minister of Pakistan. He shot the latter twice in the chest at point blank range at a political gathering of around 100,000 people in the Company Bagh, Rawalpindi, on 16 October 1951.

Akbar was born in Khost, Afghanistan, to the Pashtun chieftain Babrak Khan. Akbar had participated in the Afghan tribal revolts of 1944–1947 against the governments of both Afghanistan and British India, and around this time, sought refuge in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) of British India, which later became part of Pakistan in the wake of the partition of British India.

After Akbar assassinated Liaquat Ali Khan, a group of police officers instantly shot and killed him. As such, Akbar's motives for the assassinations remain unclear and various theories persist. Most of the Pakistani public had speculated him to be an agent of the Soviet Union, as Khan's foreign policy sided with the United States-led Western Bloc against the Soviet-led Eastern Bloc. Others assert him to be a Pashtun nationalist who supported the cause of Pashtunistan.