Who Owns Pakistan - Yimg

ginning factories, four flour mills and oil extraction plants. The remnants of Maula
Baksh group are still active in the Sunshine group of Aftab Ahmad Sheikh.
Muhammad Ismaeel Maula Baksh and Company was the parent company of the
group with branches in Multan, Mian Chonu, Shamkot, Khanewal, Toba Tek
Singh, Amritsar and Sarhand Sharif. Every factory was adorned with a crescent
and star proclaiming proudly that it was owned by a Muslim, Farooq A Sheikh of
Colony group recalled in an interview.
Colony group had started work on Colony Textile Mills at Multan in 1945 and
Sheikh claimed that it was first textile mill to go into operation in independent
Pakistan, followed on the heels by Valika Textile Mills in Karachi.
" The state of indusrial development in 1940 can be imagined by the fact that
Colony goup shifted to Multan from Faisalabad to avoid competition with Delhi
Cloth Mills of Sir Sri Ram, as two textile mills were considered as too many for
Faisalabad, called the Manchester of Pakistan today", Sheikh recalled.
Mohammad Ismaeel had four sons, eldest Aziz A Sheikh followed by Naseer A
Sheikh, Farooq A Sheikh and youngest Mughis A Sheikh. Like so many other
industrialists, members of the Colony group also became active in politics, owned
equity in newspapers and contested elections. Naseer A Sheikh was on board of
Civil and Military Gazette and Nawa-e-Waqat while Farooq A Sheikh contested
elections for the national assembly in 1970.
Colony was ranked among the top ten groups in Pakistan in 1970, with up to a
dozen manufacturing companies under its umbrella while Maula Baksh group
was ranked 27th by Lawrence White. In 1970, Maula Baksh group comprised F P
Textile Mills, Peshawar, Absorbents Cotton Plant Multan, Second Linter Plant
Multan, Sukdev Baksh Flour Mills Multan and cotton ginning factories at Mian
Chonu. The group also held equity in Multan Electric Company and all the units
in its fold were managed by the principal company of the group, Maqbool &
Company.
Dost Mohammad Monnoo and his brother Mian Nazir Hussain had set up
Olympia Rubber Works at Calcutta, in pre-partition India which was exchanged
for a textile mills at Tongi, Dhaka whose name was changed to Olympia Textile
Mills. Another unit Olympia Textile Mills-2, Nabi Ganj, Naryanganj was added to it
but the death of Mian Nazir Hussain in 1959 led to the split of the family assets.
Three sons of Mian Nazir Hussain namely Kaisar Monnoo, Shahzada Monnoo
and Jehangir Monnoo are leading the main Monnoo Empire today comprising at
least 20 industrial units and a 500 acre Olympia farm. The Monnoos held the
franchise of Toyota motor cars in Pakistan and had plans for their progressive
assembly and manufacture when Bhutto's nationalization scuttled all such plans.
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