Abul Kashem Khan

He died on 31 March 1991. His wife, Shamsun Nahar Khan, died the same year just two months after his death. He left behind nine children – five sons and four daughters.

He 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.

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 1951-1952 budget he spoke against the economical discrimination of East Pakistan.

Khan married his wife 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.

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 leading conglomerates until 1971, when it became one of 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 member in the Pakistan National Assembly.

He was born in an aristocratic family 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.