Hamid Mir
Seeing Altaf Hassan Qureshi reminded me of my childhood. Our father used to give us two children’s magazines, “Noonhal” and “Taleem-o-Tarbat” to read, but I was more interested in “Urdu Digest” and “Sabrang Digest” than these magazines. I was first introduced to Altaf Hassan Qureshi through Urdu Digest. When I entered the field of journalism, he was one of those elders who encouraged me a lot. Whenever I faced a difficult time, he would call me and give me courage. In 2014, when I was attacked in Karachi, he came to visit me in the form of a delegation along with Mujeeb-ur-Rehman Shami and some other journalists. He consoled me for a long time and took pictures with me. I often told him that he was our childhood love. When I received the news of his death on May 16, my first thought was that the phone call in which he used to say that I am very worried about you would never come again. They used to say that you must tell the truth but be careful. Altaf Hassan Qureshi belonged to the right wing, but he was arrested during the rule of all kinds of governments. He was arrested by the democratic government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and by the military government of General Zia-ul-Haq. The story of his differences with Bhutto is very interesting. In 1966, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was the Foreign Minister.
Bhutto had a disagreement with the government of Field Marshal Ayub Khan over the Tashkent Agreement. Once, while coming from Karachi to Islamabad, the Foreign Minister met Qureshi Sahib. Bhutto Sahib told him what his reservations were about the Tashkent Agreement. Qureshi Sahib published the conversation with Bhutto in the Urdu Digest, which made the Field Marshal angry with his Foreign Minister. Bhutto Sahib requested Altaf Hassan Qureshi to publish my refutation. Before the refutation was published, Bhutto Sahib was removed from the Foreign Ministry. Then he founded the Pakistan People’s Party and changed the course of Pakistani politics. After a few years, General Zia-ul-Haq seized power by overthrowing Bhutto Sahib’s government, and Altaf Hassan Qureshi interviewed General Zia-ul-Haq. When this interview was published in Urdu Digest, the military dictator also became angry with him because some of Qureshi Sahib’s questions and his answers revealed General Zia’s personal grudge against Bhutto.
On October 20, 1977, Altaf Hassan Qureshi was arrested and imprisoned in Kot Lakhpat Jail, Lahore, where Bhutto Sahib was already imprisoned. Altaf Hassan Qureshi Sahib told Atta-ul-Haq Qasmi in an interview on PTV in 2017 that once Bhutto Sahib, through his assistant in jail, asked me for the issue of Urdu Digest in which General Zia’s interview had been published. Qureshi Sahib somehow provided this issue to Bhutto Sahib and then Bhutto Sahib mentioned this interview in his book “If I Were Killed” which he had written in jail. This was Altaf Hassan Qureshi’s high moral character and journalistic integrity. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto arrested him and his brother Ijaz Hassan Qureshi not once but repeatedly during his tenure in power, but Altaf Hassan Qureshi did not turn his differences with Bhutto into personal enmity but cooperated with him even in jail. This was a time when right-wing and left-wing journalists, despite their political and ideological differences, stood together on freedom of the press. During the Bhutto era, when Altaf Hassan Qureshi, Ijaz Hassan Qureshi, Mujeeb-ur-Rehman Shami, Hussain Naqi and Muzaffar Qadir were arrested, journalists from both the right and left campaigned for their release. During the Zia era, when Altaf Hassan Qureshi and Hussain Naqi were arrested again, General Zia formed a new group in the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists to break the unity of journalists. This grouping caused irreparable damage to journalism.
Majeed Nizami belonged to the right wing and APP Director General Ahmed Bashir (father of Bushra Ansari) belonged to the left wing. All of them formed a delegation to meet Prime Minister Bhutto against the arrest of Altaf Hassan Qureshi and other journalists. Later, Ahmed Bashir was dismissed from government service. After becoming the editor of an Urdu newspaper in 1996, I started being invited to the meetings of the Council of Pakistan Newspaper Editors (CPNE) and APNS. A new series of meetings with Altaf Hassan Qureshi started. He would talk to me less about CPNE or APNS matters and more about my columns. On some issues, his point of view would differ from mine, but he would always agree with me on the supremacy of the Constitution. He was strongly against martial law. I personally know that when General Pervez Musharraf seized power in 1999, he ordered the arrest of Altaf Hassan Qureshi a few days later. Lieutenant General Khalid Maqbool was the Corps Commander in Lahore. He was told to arrest Altaf Hassan Qureshi because he was opposing the military coup of October 12, 1999. Apart from Khalid Maqbool, the then Director General of Military Intelligence, Major General Ehsan-ul-Haq, also gave his opinion against the arrest of Qureshi, and then Musharraf changed his decision. When General Pervez Musharraf was in power, he was haunted by the ghost of recognizing Israel. Altaf Hassan Qureshi was one of those journalists who opposed recognizing Israel. In 2019, when General Qamar Javed Bajwa restarted this old project, I wrote a column in the daily Jang. Altaf Hassan Qureshi also wrote a column in my support.
In 2022, he compiled all his old writings and interviews about Bangladesh into a book called “East Pakistan. A Broken Star”. Iqan Hassan Qureshi compiled this treasure trove of knowledge. The sole purpose of this effort was to prevent the mistakes that led to East Pakistan becoming Bangladesh from being repeated in today’s Pakistan. Reading this book by Altaf Hassan Qureshi, started pointing out the unrest among Bengali brothers and sisters in 1964, but Field Marshal General Ayub Khan did not pay attention at that time. In an attempt to find a cure for this political unrest and deprivation with guns, Pakistan was broken in 1971. Altaf Hassan Qureshi saw the formation of Pakistan at the age of 15 and left this world at the age of 94, mourning the breakup of Pakistan. He was the pride of Pakistani journalism. The pride of every Pakistani. Mujeeb-ur-Rehman Shami used to call him the Data Ganj Bakhsh of Pakistani journalism, around whom there was always a crowd of pilgrims. Dr. Tahir Masood paid tribute to his mentor and mentor by compiling a book called “Altaf Sahafat”. May Allah Almighty elevate the ranks of Altaf Hassan Qureshi and grant us the ability to continue following his path, Amen.
