ABSTRACT
Mir Laik Ali was a very fortunate man. When Sir Akbar Hyderi was Prime Minister of Hyderabad, Laik Ali was an assistant engineer in the State’s public works department. Sir Akbar took interest in him and offered to help him if he left his government job. Laik Ali resigned from service and started a company called ‘Hyderabad Construction Company’. He started getting government contracts and prospered rapidly. He also started other industries in Hyderabad as well as elsewhere. Together with his brother-in-law Moin Nawaz Jung he also purchased large tracts of fertile land irrigated by the Nizam Sagar dam.
Laik Ali knew Mohammad Ali Jinnah well. In September 1947, Jinnah asked Laik Ali to join the Pakistani delegation to the United Nations. However, he did not do so, though he went to Lahore and met Jinnah. In November 1947, the Nizam appointed Laik Ali Prime Minister. Just before he took over, the standstill agreement between Hyderabad and India had come into effect.
Eventually, India’s police action began on 13 September 1948 and the Nizam’s forces surrendered on 17 September 1948. On 19 September, Laik Ali was placed under house arrest. In early March 1950, he and his wife escaped from his house under a clever subterfuge and went to Gulbarga and from there to Bombay by train. Finally, he himself flew and his wife sailed to Karachi.
