Mahbub Jamal Zahedi

Mahbub Jamal Zahedi (1929–2008), also known as M J Zahedi, was a veteran journalist

Early and personal life Mahbub Jamal Zahedi was born in Dhaka in 1929. Zahedi studied English literature at the University of Dhaka. He was married to Qamarunissa Begum, and had two daughters, Jamila and Selina, and a son, Dilawar. In 2003, Zahedi suffered a stroke that rendered him paralysed and bedridden.

Career Mahbub Jamal Zahedi had a journalistic career that spanned nearly five decades. He served in several newspapers in the then East Pakistan and West Pakistan in key positions, as well as going on assignments to Lagos, Nigeria; Sydney and Melbourne, Australia; and Beijing, China. Due to his left-wing views, he was jailed on several occasions. He was also the founder and editor of the popular Bangladeshi periodical The Agatya in then East Pakistan.

1950s Zahedi started his career in the early 1950s working for the Pakistan Observer newspaper. Within the year he transferred to Dawn at the invitation of its editor, Altaf Husain. There he was given the position of news editor. In the same year he also covered the UN enquiry into allegations of genocide in Nigeria.

He left Dawn in 1974 to move to Dubai to help launch the Khaleej Times, the first English newspaper in the Middle East, where, with Mahmoud Haroon, he rose to become one of its establishing editors.

Books Zahedi, Mahbub Jamal (1997) Fifty Years of Pakistan Stamps, Sanaa Publications, Karachi, Pakistan. Zahedi, Mahbub Jamal (1994) Gulf post: Story of the post in the Gulf, Sanaa Publications, Karachi, Pakistan