KARACHI: Senior Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader Syed Nehal Hashmi on Friday took the oath as the new governor of Sindh.

Sindh High Court Chief Justice Zafar Ahmed Rajput administered the oath at a ceremony held at Governor House.

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, members of his cabinet, Karachi Mayor Murtaza Wahab, provincial leadership of the PML-N and senior government officials were also present. Chief Secretary Asif Hyder Shah moderated the oath-taking ceremony.

The CM met with the governor and congratulated him on assuming the prestigious office.

Says federal institutions in Sindh will become functional and work for progress of province

Born in January 1960, Mr Hashmi is a lawyer by profession. He joined politics in the 1990s and became a member of PML-N in 1992. He served as the Advisor to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Law, Justice, and Human Rights from 1997 to 1999.

He served as the Karachi chapter president of the PML-N in 2012 and provincial general secretary in 2014. The PML-N had him elected to the Senate from Punjab in 2015. However, a controversial speech he made in May 2017 landed him in hot water, culminating in his disqualification in February 2018.

Visit to Mazar-i-Quaid

Later, he visited the mausoleum of Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah to pay his respect.

Talking to the media after offering fateha, Governor Hashmi said: “We are here to pay tribute to the father of the nation. Pakistan came into being due to his efforts. Today, we have freedom because of him.”

About the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan whose nominee Kamran Tessori was removed from the office of Sindh governor a day before, he said that the party was an ally of the PML-N. “They are our brothers and I am in contact with them…we will resolve all problems together.”

He said that he had talked to the former governor Tessori over the phone and said that he had already ended all the programmes at Governor House before he assumed office.

“We have an entire department for laptops for youth, programmes for their training, loan schemes and other facilities,” he said, adding: “All the federal institutions here will become functional and work for progress in Sindh.”

He said the Sindh government would “follow in the footsteps of our sister, Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz, on how to lead a country towards progress”.

“We are political people, and we will resolve all the issues through dialogue; we will not pursue the politics of mischief,” he said.

Later, the governor visited Edhi Home in Mithadar, where he broke his fast with orphan children.

He paid tribute to Faisal Edhi and said that people like him are the real asset of the country.

He said that the federal government would expedite work on all ongoing development projects in Sindh.

Published in Dawn, March 14th, 2026