Bhopal: Ishtiaque Arif, the doyen of Urdu journalism, breathed his last after prolonged illness here in Bhopal on Tuesday.
Ishtiaque, the veteran journalist, was 87 and was suffering from cancer. He is survived by his two sons and two daughters. His wife Tanwir Arif died a few years back. She also contributed articles in Urdu on various topics like women players, children up-keep etc. She was known writer to the readers of ladies’ magazines of Urdu.
His funeral was largely attended. He was laid to rest after Isha prayers at Bada Bagh grave yard behind Saifia College. Scores of senior political leaders, eminent personalities, relatives and well wishers took part in his last journey to bid him final good-bye.
He was born on November 10, 1922 at Qasba Haswa, District Fatehapur in Uttar Pradesh and started his career as a journalist in 1943 in Urdu daily Khilafat published from Mumbai. In his 45 years of journalistic career he was also editor of Roznama Nadeem from 1948 to 1950 and Roznama Afkar for 25 years. Besides, he was editor of “Qaid” published from Lucknow (1960) and he was founder editor of Urdu daily Aftab-e-Jadeed of the Bhaskar group (1978).
He also took part in the Independent Movement and was also sent to jail many a times for participating in the Bhopal merger movement. During the freedom struggle he met Mahatma Gandhi in Lahore and shook hands with him. It may be mentioned here that Bhopal was ruled by Nawabs and Begums during British era.
Apart from chaste Urdu Ishtiaque was well versed in various languages like Arabic, English, Persian, Sanskrit etc. He has to his credit a research book on “Urdu Sahafat” published by Sapray Sanghralay.
He was the first founder member and president of Bhopal Shramjivi Patrakar Sangh (Bhopal Working Journalist Union). He gave his best contribution in the establishment of Madhya Pradesh Urdu Academy in 1971 and also gave his best contribution for making Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh.
He was recipient of number of awards. The then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee conferred on him "Fakhr-e-Sahafat Aizaz" in 1982. He received Madhya Pradesh Shramjeevi Patrakar Sangh Award & Sapray Sanghralay Award in 1990, Swami Pranavananda Patrakar Award in 1994, Ganesh Shankar Vidhyarti Award in 1997.He also received the "All India Hakeem Qamar-ul-Hasan Sahafati Aizaz".
Madhya Pradesh Urdu Academy held a condolence meeting to pay homage to Ishtiaque Arif. Urdu Academy chairman Bashir Badr, the renowned poet; vice chairman Zafar Baig and secretary Ms Nusrat Mehndi paid glowing tributes to him and remembered Arif's contribution to Urdu journalism on the occasion.
Paying tributes to the late journalist, the Swami Pranavananda Journalism Trust of India chief L. S. Herdenia has said that Arif's contribution to Urdu journalism would always be remembered. He said that Arif took to journalism when Bhopal was still a part C state, and remained active as journalist until a few years back.
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