Govt urged to help late journalist’s family

HARIPUR: Speakers at a condolence reference here at Ghazi on Thursday paid rich tributes for his services to late Muhammad Shahbaz, a senior journalist and president of the Tarbela Press Club.

Muhammad Shahbaz died of covid-19 in Ghazi on August 18, last year at the age of 66.

He had shifted to Ghazi tehsil in Haripur when the construction of Tarbela Dam was launched in the early 70s. Shahbaz became a correspondent for Daily Nawa-e Waqt and remained associated with the newspaper till his death.

He was the president of the Tarbela Press Club and served Hazara Union of Journalists and Haripur Press Club as well. The journalists and Fatima Ameen Welfare Foundation jointly had organized the programme for the late journalist.

Muhammad Irshad, Malik Fazal Karim, Mudassar Jamil Shani were among those who spoke on the occasions. The speakers termed Shahbaz an upright and true professional who never compromised journalistic ethics.

They said despite the fact he hailed from an area where the journalists hardly found an opportunity to sharpen professional skills, his reporting style, analysis of the local politics and the Tarbela Dam Project, had always been of high standards.

The speakers, however, lamented that the late Shahbaz, who spent his life in a rented house and was a cardiac patient and his wife a cancer patient, his family remained deprived of government’s financial support during his life and even after his death. They urged the government to extend financial support to the Shahbaz’s family.