Veteran journalist Zawar Hassan passed away at 96

Islamabad: Veteran journalist Zawar Hassan sadly passed away on Saturday at the good age of 97 after a brief illness.

His illustrious career ranged from the coverage  of sports to writing editorials. He also edited a travel magazine and held the position of public affairs manager,

Born in January 1927 in Pratapgarh, India, he did his LLB from Allahabad University, then moved to the newly created state of Pakistan. In 1949, he started working as a sports journalist with the Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) in Karachi, the Capital of Pakistan at that time.

He went on to become as APP’s Chief Correspondent in Lahore, earning bylines in papers like the Civil and Military Gazette.

He joined the daily Dawn in 1960 as Chief Reporter and later worked at The Morning News in Karachi as a senior editorial writer, before moving on briefly to The Sun.   His overseas stints included attending the University of Missouri School of Journalism’s Project for Foreign Newspapermen in 1957 with reporters from Taiwan, Iran, and South Korea.

His fellowship included stints at The Denver Post, in Denver, Colorado; The Lawrence Daily Journal-World, in Lawrence, Kansas; and The Mexico Ledger, in Mexico, Missouri. He was also a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University, 1966-67.

A keen sportsman, he is perhaps the only Pakistani reporter to have covered three Olympics: Melbourne, 1956, and Rome, 1960, for APP, and Sydney 2000, for Dawn on a special assignment.

Zawar Hassan launched the ground breaking travel magazine for the Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation. He later joined PIA’s Public relations department, retiring as General Manager of Advertising.

 In the mid-1990s, he relocated to California where his children had settled. His wife Abida Hasan brother Brig. (r.) Mohammad Ahmed passed away barely two weeks ago in Rawalpindi. He also leaves behind his youngest sister Zakia Sarwar, educationist and co-founder Society of Pakistan English Language Teachers (SPELT) and brother Wing Cdr (retd) Ali Hasan, besides a large extended family in Pakistan, India, and elsewhere. Another sister, prominent linguist Dr Ruqaiya Hasan passed away in Australia, 2015.