LAHORE, Jan 24 Seasoned columnist and senior editor of daily Jang Irshad Ahmad Haqqani passed away on Sunday morning. He was 81.

His funeral prayers were offered in Gulberg ground near his residence and the body was later taken to his hometown Kasur for burial.

He is survived by two sons and two daughters.

Former federal ministers Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri and Sartaj Aziz, Punjab Food Minister Malik Nadeem Kamran, PML-N Senator Pervaiz Rasheed (representing Nawaz Sharif), PPP leader Munir Ahmad Khan, Jamaat-i-Islami's Aslam Saleemi and Farid Piracha, editors, columnists from various newspapers and senior journalists of various newspapers attended the funeral.

Mr Haqqani had been suffering from heart problems for some time and stopped writing columns for the paper he had joined in 1981. He was one of the founders of the paper's Lahore edition.

Initially, Mr Haqqani was a member of Jamaat-i-Islami and served as editor of its organ Tasneem for some time. But he and a group of senior scholars and ideologues led by Maulana Amin Ahsan Islahi left the party after developing differences with the party's founder Maulana Maududi over his policy of bringing about the Islamic revolution through the ballot. The differences erupted at the 1953 Machhi Goth meeting of the Jamaat.

He also served as Principal of Islamia College, Kasur. He was federal minister for information in a caretaker government headed by Malik Mairaj Khalid.

President Asif Zardari, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif, Jamaat-i-Islami Amir Munawwar Hasan, PML-Q chief Chaudhry Shujaat Husain, ex-CM Pervaiz Elahi, MJAH president Prof Sajid Mir, Tehrik-i-Insaaf chairman Imran Khan, Punjab University vice-chancellor Mujahid Kamran and people from other walks of life have expressed grief over Mr Haqqani's death and offered condolences to his family.