LAHORE, Oct 29: Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal leader Lt-Gen (Retd) K. M. Azhar died at the Combined Military Hospital here on Sunday morning. He was 88.

The chairman of the high-powered committee of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan and a former governor of the NWFP, Gen Azhar had been admitted to the hospital after receiving a head injury while performing ablution for Asr prayers on the 28th of Ramazan. Doctors performed his brain surgery but he could not survive. His funeral prayers will be held at the Fortress Stadium here on Monday at 3:30pm.

Mr Azhar was born in India in 1918 and received education in Aligarh. He started his career as a doctor after receiving education at the King Edward Medical College.

He attended the historic meeting of the All-India Muslim League in which the Pakistan Resolution was adopted in 1940. Responding to a call of Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah exhorting the youth to join the armed forces, he left the medical profession and got commission in the armed forces in 1945.

He fought on the Burma front during the Second World War and participated in the wars against India on the Kashmir front in 1948 and at Ran of Kachh in 1964.

He defeated one division of the Indian Army with the help of only two battalions during the 1965 War and conquered 1,300 square miles area in Rajasthan and captured the Monabao Railway Station along with a large number of Indian soldiers and three tanks.

He was injured while commanding Pakistani forces on the Rajasthan front in 1971 during his tenure as the NWFP governor.

He also served as president of the Pakistan Hockey Federation in 1970 before retirement in 1972 and was the first chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board.

He is survived by five sons and two daughters.