Prof Muhammad Zakaria Sajid, former chairman of the Mass Communication Department of the University of Karachi and beloved teacher of numerous renowned senior journalists, passed away here on Thursday. He was 96.
He joined the teaching faculty of the Department of Journalism in 1963. On Prof Sajid’s watch, the Journalism Department was upgraded to Mass Communication Department in 1986 to for students formally study various mass media. He retired from the teaching service in 1988. He remained associated with the KU as part of its visiting faculty in the later years. He also served as the director of Press Institute of Pakistan for 12 years.
The conference hall of Centre for Rural Development Communication of the University of Sindh was named after him in recognition of his academic and research services.
Many of his students in the later years joined the Mass Communication Department’s faculty and became senior academicians, researchers, and department’s chairpersons.
He was awarded the prestigious civil award of Tamgha-e-Imtiaz in 2014 by the then president Mamnoon Hussain in recognition of his academic and teaching services.
Prof Dr Nisar Zuberi, one of Prof Sajid’s students who served as the chairman of Mass Communication Department, took to Facebook to praise Prof Sajid’s academic services by terming him the pioneer of research work in the discipline of Mass Communication in Pakistan.
He said that apart from Pakistan, Prof Sajid’s students belonged to a number of countries, including Thailand, Nepal, Jordan, and Iraq. He mentioned that the late senior faculty-member had never discriminated against his students on the basis of their ethnicity or linguistic affiliation.
KU Vice Chancellor Prof Dr Khalid Mahmood Iraqi expressed deep sorrow at the demise of Prof Zakaria Sajid, prayed for the departed soul, and acknowledged his services in the field of journalism. The funeral prayer was offered at Masjid-e-Ibrahim after Namaz-e-Zuhr and later Prof Sajid was buried at the KU graveyard.