Print Print edition: 2016-11-25

Moeen Qureshi and Humayun Mirza

Published November 25, 2016 Updated November 25, 2016 12:00am

This is apropos a Business Recorder news item "Former caretaker PM Moeen Qureshi passes away in US" carried by the newspaper yesterday. According to it, former caretaker Prime Minister Moeen Qureshi died in the United States on Tuesday at the age of 86. The former PM was ailing for a long time and undergoing treatment in Washington.
The report pointed out that Moeen Qureshi served as the caretaker prime minister of Pakistan from July 18, 1993 to October 19, 1993 after both Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and President Ghulam Ishaq Khan resigned from their respected offices. In 1981, Moeen Qureshi joined the World Bank and became the senior vice president of finance, which he remained until 1987. Eventually, he was appointed the Senior Vice President of the World Bank and oversaw its financial operations all over the world.
Moeen Qureshi's death brings to one's mind the name of another Pakistani. Humayun Mirza, the son of Pakistan's first President Iskandar Mirza, too spent good time with the World Bank. Perhaps the only important role that Humayun played in Pakistan's politics was his meeting with General Ziaul Haq in which he unsuccessfully persuaded the military dictator to overturn the death sentence for Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.