Prominent Kashmiri leader, Professor Nazir Ahmed Shawl, passed away in London today after a brief illness. He was 77. According to Kashmir Media Service, Professor Nazir Ahmed Shawl was admitted to a hospital in London due to a serious illness on December 23.
He was suffering from a chest infection and kidney problems. He breathed his last today. He was a multilingual person, an educationist, an author and poet, and a human rights defender.
Professor Nazir Ahmed Shawl was born in Baramulla, a town in Indian-occupied Jammu and Kashmir, on October 13, 1946. He received his education from Baramulla.
He graduated in sciences and post-graduated in botany from Kashmir University, specializing in ecology, and post-graduated in education from the Himachal Pradesh University, India.
He undertook various trainings at NCERT (India’s National Council of Educational Research and Training) in Delhi and SCERT (State Council for Educational Research and Training) in Jaipur, India, and specialized in curriculum development.
He started his professional work at St. Joseph’s Institute, Baramulla, and later joined the government education department, having contributed to educational theory and practices through different research projects in association with SCERT and UNICEF, including developing experimental curricula, particularly in environmental studies.
Professor Shawl held different positions in his professional career, including being a professor and researcher in botany, field advisor in sciences, coordinator of UNICEF-assisted project PECR, member of the Board of Undergraduate Studies in Botany at the University of Kashmir, and Chief Test Administrator of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS-Bombay).
Professor Shawl migrated to Pakistan in 1991 and started working for the Kashmir cause.
He remained a representative of veteran Kashmiri leader Syed Ali Gilani for some time in the APHC-AJK chapter. He worked as Chief Editor of the Kashmir Mirror, Chief Editor of SANA News (now SABAH), and Chief Editor of the news agency Kashmir Press International.
