KARACHI, Jan 15: The 'Baba-i-Urdu' of Japan, Prof Takeshi Suzuki, died of cancer on Jan 14 after suffering from the disease for quite sometime, said an announcement of the University of Karachi on Saturday.

The Department of Urdu, KU had held a condolence meeting to mourn the demise of Prof Takeshi Suzuki. Tributes were paid to him for his services to the promotion of Urdu. The late Prof Suzuki was one of the senior alumni of the varsity. He had studied Urdu at KU's Urdu department from 1960 to 1962 on a scholarship of the government of Pakistan.

Prof Suzuki, after returning to Japan, devoted himself to the promotion of Urdu as well as its teaching. Urdu thus became the centre of his activities there, where he was popularly known as 'Baba-i-Urdu'.

The late professor had also authored a number of textbooks and other publications that are now part of the Urdu curriculum in Japan. He had also come up with an Urdu to Japanese and Japanese to Urdu dictionary. Not only that, Prof Suzuki also contributed papers on Islam, Pakistan and the form of poetry know as 'ghazal'. - APP