Aftab Mohammad Khan was born in January 1926 and attended Aligarh Muslim University, in Utter Pradesh, India, gaining a BSc degree in Engineering in the late 1940s before travelling to the UK and doing a Diploma in Town Planning at the University of Manchester (1958). By 1960 Khan was working as an Assistant Town Planner for Government of East Pakistan but returned to the UK in the same year to undertake the Architectural Association’s post-graduate course within the Department of Tropical Architecture. On his return to East Pakistan he assisted in drawing up the masterplan for New Mirpur City (1961), prepared under the UN Technical Assistance Programme, and was promoted to Senior Planner within the Urban Development Directorate, based in Segunbagicha, Dakkah. He subsequently rose to become Deputy Chief Planner (c1969) and finally Director of the Urban Development, Housing and Settlement Department (c1971). Described as one of the first generation of ‘pioneer’ town planners of Pakistan, Aftab was eventually to leave civil service and to set up his own architecture, engineering and town-planning consultancy, ‘Aftab and Associates’, based in Saddar, Karachi, Pakistan.

Sources

• Architectural Association Student Register, 1960-61. AA Archives
• Architectural Association Council Minutes, 20th February, 1961. AA Archives
• Architectural Association Membership List 1961
• East Bengal Civil List, Vol. 7, (1960) p,678
• Journal of the Town Planning Institute, Vols 47-48 (1961), p.251
• Rahman, A.U., Evolution of Town Planning in Pakistan – with a specific reference to Punjab Province. Allied Book Company, 2017