IT is always rewarding to remember dedicated workers of the Pakistan Movement who served this cause during the crucial period of struggle. One such person was Inayatullah Mughal, a prominent reformer and close associate of the Quaid-i-Azam, whose death anniversary falls today.

A descendant of the royal Mughal dynasty, Mughal was born in 1883 in Shikarpur. His ancestors had migrated from Delhi to Sindh after the war of independence in 1857. Members of his family were followers of Hazrat Sachal Sarmast, a great Sufi saint of South Asia.

Mughal came over to Karachi in 1925 and then settled down here. Those were the days when the Khilafat Movement had collapsed and the Muslims were demoralised. In that gloomy period, when the Karachi City Muslim League was formed, Mughal became its president.

In 1942, he set up a social organisation called the Sindh Muslim Cooperative Housing Society (SMCHS) and worked in close association with Sir Ghulam Hussain Hidayatullah and other Muslim leaders, including Shaikh Abdul Majeed Sindhi.

On the specific instructions of the Quaid, he, along with Maulana Abdul Quddus Bihari, undertook the task of rehabilitating refugees from India. Mughal was also a founder-member of the management committee of the Shah Abdul Lateef Educational Trust. He died this day in 2000 at the age of 112.

Usman Dahomi

Karachi

Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2018