KARACHI: Khawaja Mohammad Zubair, a former Dawn staff member, died in Karachi on Tuesday morning after a long illness. He was 91. His funeral prayers were held in the evening and he was buried at the Mewashah graveyard.

Zubair Sahib, as he was known among colleagues, joined Dawn in 1954 and remained associated with it till 1980, after which he left for greener pastures, including a stint with Khaleej Times, at Dubai. He returned to Dawn in 1998 but continued to write a column for KT. He was proud of working for the paper founded by the founder of Pakistan and remained part of the Dawn family till 2008, when he chose to retire for domestic reasons.

Zubair Sahib was one of the few surviving journalists who were appointed in Dawn, Karachi, by Altaf Husain, the legendary Dawn editor, who was chosen by the Quaid-i-Azam to head the daily in Delhi before partition to serve as the mouthpiece for the All India Muslim League.

A highly popular man among his colleagues because of the versatility of his personality and a sense of humour, Zubair Sahib belonged to the family of Khawaja Nazimuddin, Pakistan’s second governor-general and second prime minister. He is survived by his wife, a son, Owais and a daughter, Bina, both in the United States, and his eldest daughter, Lulu, who is in Karachi.

Published in Dawn, September 7th, 2022