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Today's Paper | December 23, 2024

Updated 26 Aug, 2018 04:07pm

Advocate Ahmad Saeed Kirmani passes away

Renowned lawyer and worker of the Pakistan Movement Advocate Ahmad Saeed Kirmani passed away in Lahore on Sunday.

Advocate Kirmani, who was 95-years-old, had been ill for some time, according to a statement issued by his son, Asif Kirmani, a Senator and PML-N leader.

Veteran PML-N leader Ahmad Saeed Kirmani with then party chief Nawaz Sharif in 2011. ─ File

Ahmad Saeed Kirmani was a central leader of the Muslim League and associated with Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah when he was a student leader.

He began his political career as secretary of the Punjab Muslim Student Federation from 1943-47, during which time he was also jailed twice. He was among those who popularised the Muslim League as a student leader in Punjab from 1940-47.

He remained a member of the All India Muslim League Council (nominated from the students quota by Jinnah from 1945-48, a member of the Pakistan Muslim League Council from 1948-88, West Pakistan Muslim League party secretary from 1957-58, and a member of the PML Working Committee from 1965-88.

He served as president of the West Pakistan Convention Muslim League from 1968-69. He later joined what is now known as the PML-N under Nawaz Sharif's leadership.

He also remained a patron of the Nazaria-i-Pakistan Forum from 2002 to date, and has been chief convener of the Nazariati Muslim League Workers Council since 1985.

In 1946, he was sent as a delegate to the All India Muslim League Convention, where the 1940 Lahore Resolution was reshaped.

He was a member of a team of lawyers headed by the late Zafarullah Khan, which argued the Muslim League's case before the Punjab Boundary Commission in May 1947.

Ahmad Saeed Kirmani was also among the members of the Muslim League Election Tribunal set up by Pakistan's firm prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan.

He was a member of the Punjab Legislative Assembly (1951-55) and the West Pakistan Assembly (1956-58 and 1962-66), and also appointed West Pakistan Minister for Finance, Information, Excise and Taxation, and Railways from 1966-69.

He enrolled as a Supreme Court advocate in October 1957 and was elected Lahore High Court Bar Association president 1980-81.

Kirmani was appointed envoy to Egypt and North Yemen from 1974-77 and awarded a Hilal-i-Khidmat by the government of Pakistan in 1968.

His funeral prayers will be offered today at the Eid Gah on Lahore's Bahawalpur Road at 7pm. He will be laid to rest at the Miani Sahib Graveyard, a press release issued by Asif Kirmani said.

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