JAMMU, July 26: Prof Jagan Nath Azad, Urdu poet, scholar and an eminent authority on Allama Iqbal, died in New Delhi last week. He is survived by his wife, two sons and three daughters.

The cremation of the poet took place in New Delhi on Sunday. Mr Azad got his education and started his career in what is now Pakistan and migrated to Delhi in 1947. After passing matriculation from a school in Mianwali and graduating from the Gordon College, Rawalpindi, he did his masters in Persian in 1944 from Oriental College, Lahore. He served as lecturer in Urdu at Lahore's DAV College,

After moving to Delhi, he got a job in India's Press Information Department and was posted to Srinagar. Jagan Nath Azad had won several awards in Pakistan, India, Russia and other countries. For the na'ats composed by him, he was given the Seerat -i-Pak Award by Britain's Bradford Publications.

Mr Azad wrote a long poem condemning the destruction of the Babri Mosque in 1992. Said he: "Hamarey dil ko toda hey imarat ko nahin toda, khabasat ki bhi had hoti hey aey todney waley."

Azad wrote 11 books, both in English and Urdu, on Iqbal. It was mainly through the efforts of Jagan Nath Azad that the Indian government overturned restrictions on Iqbal's works placed after partition. -APP