Afzal Bangash

Bangash died of kidney failure on October 28, 1986, in Peshawar, Pakistan. Nearly one hundred thousand people turned up at his funeral and several hundred thousand mourned in villages and towns both inside and outside NWFP. The present chief minister, governor as well as several provincial ministers and members of the assembly came to pay their respects.

On 31 March 1985, in London and together with Ataullah Mengal, Mumtaz Bhutto and others, he formed the Sindhi–Baloch–Pashtun Front (SBPF) demanding a confederal structure for Pakistan to guarantee the rights of smaller nationalities and counter what they perceived as a Punjabi establishment's hegemony of Pakistan.

After the lifting of martial law and induction of a civilian government in 1985, political activity was revived in Pakistan and in mid-1986 Afzal Bangash returned to his home country. He resided at his house at Kohat Road in Peshawar and remained involved with merging leftist parties including supporting the fateful decision to merge the MKP with Khan Abdul Wali Khan's National Democratic Party (NDP) thus creating the new Awami National Party (ANP) and ending a nearly two decade-long dispute with Wali Khan. Other parties included in this merger were a faction of the PNP and Rasool Paleejo’s Awami Tehrik. Wali Khan became the first president of the ANP while MKP’s Sardar Shaukat Ali was elected as its General Secretary.

In 1981 the MKP helped found the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD), and Bangash worked with Benazir Bhutto during that era.

On October 16, 1979, Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq declared martial law and intensified political repression. A number of serious charges were drawn up with which to frame Bangash in military courts, however they remained internal and were never made public.

Afzal Bangash had numerous health problems, including chronic bronchitis, asthma, kidney failure, stroke, near blindness, diabetes, heart disease and hypertension. These health issues prompted him to travel abroad to the United Kingdom in 1979, to receive treatment. While staying in the UK he decided against returning to Pakistan for the time being, due to the situation in Pakistan. Instead, he remained active abroad in mobilizing opposition to the military rule of Zia-ul-Haq. During these years he also traveled extensively throughout western Europe, and made trips to the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Poland, the United States, Cuba, India and Mongolia.

He also traveled to Afghanistan. After the Saur Revolution in 1978, Hafizullah Amin had come to power and during Bangash's visit to Afghanistan they spoke together. Amin wanted Bangash to turn the MKP into a Pakistani party allied with his Khalq faction thereby extending the revolution into Pakistan. However, Bangash refused this and instead admonished Amin advising him to take local culture and norms into consideration.

In the 1967 NAP split, Afzal Bangash and Sher Ali Bacha, who were active in peasant committees, decided to follow the Khan Abdul Wali Khan faction. However, the NAP leadership soon decided to bar Bangash and Bacha from simultaneously working in peasant committees while being members of the NAP. As a result, they decided to leave the NAP and found the Mazdoor Kisan Party (MKP) on May 1, 1968. The MKP was to become the largest and most militant party with a Marxist orientation in the history of Pakistan. Although Bangash was recognized as principal leader of the MKP, he did not hold any official position until July 1979 when he was elected its president at the party's second congress.

In the 1965 Pakistani presidential election, Bangash served as Fatima Jinnah's provincial chief campaign manager in her campaign against Ayub Khan.

In 1957 he was elected as the first General Secretary of the National Awami Party (NAP). He was responsible for organizing the peasant committee in NWFP.

Bangash joined the Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP) soon after its formation in 1948 and became a member of its NWFP committee.

Mohammad Afzal Khan Bangash (Pashto: محمد افضل بنګش; April 16, 1924 — October 28, 1986) was a Pashtun Marxist political activist serving as an office-bearer in the National Awami Party (NAP), and later, along with his colleague Sher Ali Bacha, as the co-founder and president of the Mazdoor Kisan Party (MKP).

Mohammad Afzal Khan Bangash was born on April 16, 1924, in Kohat, British India. His father was Mohammad Akbar Khan Bangash, an advocate.