Columnist Muhammad Tufail passes away

LAHORE:Muhammad Tufail, Pa Ji, columnist and senior member of daily Jang Lahore team, died here on Wednesday. He was around 90-year old. He had liver cirrhosis. On Sunday, he felt very unwell and after that his condition only deteriorated, The News learnt from the family. Almost till the end he came to office regularly and would walk by himself without the aid of another hand or stick. He will be long remembered for his remarkable cheerfulness which was contagious.

The first editorial published in Daily Jang in 1981 was written by him and he was in the Jang editorial team till the end. In the early days of Jang, he was among the people who would stand at Charing Cross, The Mall to sell Jang along with other team members. He engaged with the paper whole-heartedly as he worked with the reporting and the newsroom team. His career as a journalist spanned over 66 years as he started working for newspapers in the mid-50s. He was in Musawat, Maghrabi Pakistan and had brief stints in other papers before joining Jang in 1981.

He has left behind three sons and two daughters. He was father of Fauzia Gauhar, council member Lahore Press Club (LPC) and father-in-law of Gauhar Butt, former vice-president LPC. He loved to be among friends and smoke Huqqa in their company but his friends Anwar Qidwai, Abbas Ather, Hameed Akhter who were also his peers, departed from this world one by one. His wife died a decade back. He had started smoking a year and a half ago. What all his colleagues recall about him is that he was a merry old soul who was sure to greet you if you missed him somehow. It is rightly said, cheerfulness is a sign of the accomplished mind. He wrote till the end.