LAHORE: Funeral prayers for progressive intellectual, journalist and teacher Prof Amin Mughal, who was in exile since the dictatorship of Gen Ziaul Haq, were offered at Birmingham’s Central Mosque.
He was laid to rest in Handsworth Graveyard on Friday afternoon.
He passed away in a London hospital on Wednesday night, at the age of 91.
Amin Mughal, who received education in Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh (where his father was posted as a VCO - now known as JCO), Murray College, Sialkot, and Government College, Lahore, was one of the pioneers of Shah Hussain College in Lahore, along with Prof Manzoor Hussain, Eric Cyprian and Ahmed Saleem.
In the 1970s, he was a part of the editorial board of short-lived Urdu daily ‘Azad’ along I. A. Rehman, and Abdullah Malik. Later on, he also made a name as an English language journalist while serving on the editorial board of weekly Viewpoint along with Mazhar Ali Khan and I.A. Rehman during Gen Zia’s military regime.
Before that, he was fired from Islamia College Lahore for his trade union activities along with Prof Manzoor Ahmed. This led to the founding of Shah Hussain College. After his imprisonment in Shahi Qila on terrorism charges, Amin Mughal quietly left Lahore and landed in the UK in 1983.
In London, Amin Mughal worked for daily Jang before taking up the editorship of daily Awaaz in the early 1990s, which had a short life span of a little over a year. Though he continued living in London from the start of his exile, he clung to his Pakistani passport, refusing to apply for grant of British nationality.
Published in Dawn, August 15th, 2026