Abul Kashem Khan (best known as A. K. Khan; 5 April 1905 – 31 March 1991) was a Bangladeshi lawyer, industrialist, and politician. In 1945, he founded A K Khan & Company, one of Pakistan's and later Bangladesh's leading conglomerates. Khan served as a member of the Constituent Assembly of India and the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan. He was a federal minister of Pakistan and s member of the Pakistan National Assembly.
Early life Abul Kashem Khan was born in a family historically active in the politics of Bengal in the village of Mohara in Panchlaish in Chittagong in 1905. His father, Abdul Latif Khan, was a government sub-registrar at Fatehabad, Chittagong, and his mother's name was Wahabun Nessa Khan. Khan's great-great-great-grandfather, Shamsher Khan, was a rich politician and minister in the city of Gour in the 16th century. Khan studied law at Presidency College, Calcutta. In 1934 he joined the Kolkata High Court as an advocate. He joined the judicial branch of the Bengali Civil Service in 1935. He continued in the service till 1944.
Career Khan entered business during the Second World War in 1945, when Chittagong was a key base for Allied Forces. A variety of industries, including a match factory, a plywood factory, a garment mill, and a dockyard, have been stepped up by him. He was elected a member of the Constituent Assembly of India from the All-India Muslim League candidate in 1946. He joined the Pakistan Constituent Assembly after the partition of India. In the 1951-1952 budget, he spoke against the economic discrimination toward East Pakistan.
Politics Khan was the minister of Industries, Works, Irrigation, Power and Mineral Resources from 1958 to 1962. From 1962 to 1964, he was a member of the national assembly of Pakistan. He retired from politics in 1965.
Personal life Khan married Shamsun Nahar Khan in 1935. She was the daughter of a wealthy merchant, Abdul Bari Chowdhury, who owned industries in British Burma. Abdul Bari owned a shipping company and multiple rice mills in Rangoon until the Japanese invasion of Burma, after which he moved to Chittagong. In Chittagong, he established a shipping company called the Bengal-Burma Steam Navigation Company, the first maritime company in the area to challenge the dominance of the British India Steam Navigation Company. Chowdhury also served as a director of the Pakistan Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation.
Khan had nine children with Shamsun Nahar, five sons and four daughters: Zahiruddin (Bambu), Shamsuddin (Jambu), Salahuddin, Sadruddin, Ziauddin (Pablo), Latifa (Kohinoor), Zebun Nahar, Yasmin, and Shamima.
Khan's eldest son, Zahiruddin, was married to Asma Afzal, daughter of Barrister Khandkar Ali Afzal, the first Bengali secretary of the Bengal Legislative Assembly and granddaughter of Khandakar Fazle Rabbi, Dewan for the Nawab of Murshidabad.
Khan's eldest daughter, Latifa, was married to Bangladesh's first minister of commerce and the first Bangladeshi ambassador to the United States, Mustafizur Rahman Siddiqi.
Death Khan died on 31 March 1991. His wife, Shamsun Nahar Khan, died two months later.
In popular culture AK Khan More is a circle located in Chittagong, Bangladesh, near the Dhaka-Chittagong Trunk Road.
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