KARACHI: Former prime minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali has passed away at a hospital in Rawalpindi at the age of 76, his relative Senator Sana Jamali confirmed on Wednesday evening. Jamali, who served as the premier from November 2002 until June 2004, was shifted to the Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology & National Institute of Heart Diseases (AFIC-NIHD) in Rawalpindi after suffering a heart attack last week.

For the last few days, he had been put on a ventilator in the Critical Care Unit of the hospital. The details of his funeral have not been issued as yet. Jamali had served as the prime minister during the military regime of Gen Pervez Musharraf. However, Gen Musharraf sought his resignation in 2004 and he was replaced by Shaukat Aziz.

He won the 2013 general elections as an independent, but later joined the PML-N and used to sit on the treasury benches in the previous assembly. The PML-N leadership had issued a show-cause notice to Jamali in October 2017 when he did not vote in line with the party's policy on the bill allowing Nawaz Sharif to assume the office of the party president despite his disqualification by the Supreme Court in the Panama Papers case.

Jamali resigned from the National Assembly only days before the completion of the assembly's term, citing health concerns. He was opposed to the PML-N policy of having confrontation with the judiciary. Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali was born on January 1, 1944, in a small village - Roojhan Jamali - of Balochistan's Nasirabad division into a Baloch political family of Mir Jaffar Khan Jamali, a close friend of Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah. His father Mir Shahnawaz Khan Jamali was not directly involved in active politics, but he was a jirga member and landlord of the area.

Zafarullah started his schooling from his native village, but soon his father sent him to Lawrence Collage, Ghora Gali Murree, from where he did his O level and A level in early 60s. Then he joined Government College Lahore for graduation. Later, he did his Masters in History from Punjab University.

During school and college days, he was a very good player of hockey. He also remained captain of the varsity's hockey team. As a sportsman, he continued efforts for the promotion of hockey in the country and was twice appointed as chief selector of the Pakistan hockey team. It was under his supervision that Pakistan won the Atlanta Olympics title.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020