Karachi‘s senior journalist, author of several books, blogger, teacher and social leader Akhtar Hussain Baloch known as Akhtar Baloch passed away.
He was 54 years old. Akhtar Baloch’s nephew, Naveed Baloch, while confirming his death, said that he died last night at his residence in Garden after his health deteriorated suddenly.
According to Naveed Baloch, around 10:30 last night, he told his family that he was feeling anxious. He died after some time.
Akhtar Soomro, a senior photographer from Karachi, who has been sitting at the same table with Akhtar Baloch in the card room of the Karachi Press Club every day for the past several years, told Independent Urdu that on Friday he returned from preparations for a musical program at the Arts Council. After that, Akhtar Baloch told him that he had fever.
‘I brought the doctor to his house and found out that his blood pressure has gone down, so he was put on a drip. His blood pressure remained low on Saturday as well. At 12 o’clock in the night, it was reported that he died.
‘We spent time together every day for many years. People like Akhtar Baloch are rare in life. Their lack can never be fulfilled.’
Akhtar Baloch was a resident of Baloch Mohalla located in Lalchandabad area of Mirpurkhas city of Sindh. According to Naveed Baloch, he had four sisters and five brothers while he has one son and two daughters.
After his student days, he joined the Rotary Club of Pakistan. After which he started journalism from Mirpurkhas. After some time, he moved to Hyderabad where he became the Bureau Chief of the daily Kainat. He also started working with the Akhtar Baloch Commission for Human Rights of Pakistan (HRCP) in Hyderabad. In those days, the issue of forced labor from poor farmers by the powerful landlords was on the rise in Sindh. Against which the HRCP movement was in full swing. Akhtar Baloch was also active in this movement at that time.
While doing journalism in Hyderabad, he went missing for some time but was recovered after intense protests in Sindh.
After recovery, Akhtar Baloch moved from Hyderabad to Karachi. In Karachi, he was associated for many years with the non-governmental organization ‘Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC)’ working on the protection of children’s rights.
Akhtar Baloch was well-versed in fact-finding in human rights cases.
Akhtar Baloch rode a motorcycle all his life. Any person would ask him to go somewhere, no matter how far the place is, Akhtar Baloch would never refuse and consider it his duty to take that person there on a motorcycle.
In Hyderabad, he had written ‘Aam Aadmi’ in prominent letters on the back of his motorcycle, about which he used to tell friends that people write Press, Judiciary, Police on his motorcycle, but he likes to be called an ‘Aam Aadmi’.
Akhtar Baloch also worked with the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) for many years. He had mastered HRCP’s fact-finding.
Akhtar Baloch wrote countless blogs on Karachi for Dawn.com, the online edition of the English newspaper Dawn.
The topics of these blogs were Karachi, Karachi history, historical places and Karachi personalities.
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After some time selected blogs were collected and published in three volumes called ‘Kranchiwala’. Apart from this, his research on the transgender community was also published under the name ‘Third Gender’.
Renowned historian Dr. Mubarak Ali termed Akhtar Baloch as a ‘public historian’ and wrote in the beginning of the second volume of his book Kranchiwala that I am happy that Akhtar Baloch has gone beyond traditional history to explore the lost history of common and rare people. What is written?
Another special thing is that the aim of his research is to bring to the fore those people living in the small towns and cities of Sindh, who were lost somewhere in the shadows of the big cities.
Akhtar Baloch was also fascinated by music, dance and melody. He used to hum classical tunes on the mystery of friends. They cannot stop themselves from dancing when the instrument is played in the party.
He was a council member of Hyderabad Press Club and Karachi Union of Journalists (KYJ), while an associate member of Karachi Press Club.
He used to spend most of his time in the card room of Karachi Press for the past several years.
He would sit in a certain place in the card room, where he would do that blog writing and research. He used to spend every day from morning till night in the card room at the press club.
According to Akhtar Soomro, he was working as a visiting lecturer in Shaheed Benazir Bhutto University Lyari and Federal Urdu University and was doing his PhD in Urdu in the last days of his life and the subject of his PhD was ‘Humanitarianism in Urdu Literature’. ‘
Akhtar Baloch’s funeral prayer was offered at Faqiri Mosque Garden West.
On the news of his death, his acquaintances expressed their grief with his photos on social networking websites.
Former Senator Afrasiab Khattak termed him as ‘yaar ka yaar’ and wrote that his Urdu writing was lively.
I was shocked by the news of the death of Akhtar Baloch, a colleague of the human rights movement, journalist and researcher, his Urdu writing was lively, his speech was also witty and humorous, he had contributed his heart and soul to the history of Karachi, but the other He was not stingy in sharing love even in places, he was a friend of friends
— Afrasiab Khattak (@a_siab) July 31, 2022
Journalists Matiullah Jan and Bilal Farooqui also expressed their grief.
May Allah forgive Akhtar Baloch and grant him a place in heaven, Amen! https://t.co/OAMBeKzkgF
— Matiullah Jan (@Matiullahjan919) July 31, 2022
Journalist Owais Tawheed called him an encyclopedia on many topics.
Sana Akhtar Baloch left, a blow. About twenty-five years of experience, expertise in research, encyclopedic information on some topics, wrote good columns. Human rights pioneers. Life as a dervish, spent in wandering, the stories of those living in the deserts, mountains, beaches, and called the earth a good place.
— Owais Tohid (@OwaisTohid) July 30, 2022
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