Khalid Butt
It is with utmost sadness and sense of personal loss that I learnt of the passing away of Mahmud-ul-Aziz in Karachi.
Although I have been lately out of touch with Mahmud-ul- Aziz but my relations with him and indeed with his whole family have been of everlasting importance to me. He belonged to a noble family who had migrated from Delhi to Karachi after independence to shift and launch United Press of Pakistan (UPP) in Pakistan which was among the two top rival agencies in India, called API (Associated Press of India) and UPI (United press of India) UNI still exists in India and API was renamed PTI( Press Trust of India) .
At a young age as I joined a college in Montgomery (Now called Sahiwal) ,I was delighted to become a stringer of UPP ,through the courtesy of a friend who has also expired long ago. I got a letter in 1952 from the Head office of UPP ,signed by Mr. Qutubuddin Aziz and was directed to start filing my stories to Lahore Office ,located in Dyal Singh Mansion ,The Mall ,Lahore. It was a stepping stone for me to begin a lifelong career and indeed a contact and later close personal relationship with the remarkable Aziz family in Karachi later on .
Mahmud ,later spent some years in Lahore and became a personal friend when I too shifted to Karachi in 1966. During my stay in Karachi for well over 30 years Mahmud became a personal friend and my relations became close to the whole family . Mahmud ,who also published a magazine “Pictorial News” was also a founder member of CPNE and indeed also a close friend of late Mr. Majeed Nizami ,who valued his assistance in the CPNE matters. He had been of late not in good health and my contact with him had been interrupted due to this reason. However my deep relations with him as well as with his whole illustrious family has remained intact. God Bless him and my deep personal condolence to his family members of the iconic Mahmud-ul-Aziz.
