[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text dp_text_size=”size-4″]Renowned journalist Tahir Ikram passed away at a Kuala Lumpur hospital early Sunday morning. Ikram, a former Thomson Reuters journalist and the pioneering program director of a private TV channel in Pakistan, succumbed to medical complications following a heart attack. He had suffered a massive heart attack over the weekend, according to family sources. Before his demise at the age of 59, Ikram served as the news editor for Asia at ICIS in Singapore.
Born in Rawalpindi on November 27, 1964, to Ikramul Haq, the chief reporter of Pakistan Times, and Ms A Rasheed, Ikram began his journalistic career at the PPI news agency as a reporter after graduating from Gordon College in 1983. Following in his father’s footsteps, who joined Dawn newspaper in 1948, Ikram initially attended St Mary’s Academy and later went to the Islamabad College for Boys.
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In 1986, Ikram became part of the first-ever Islamabad Bureau of the newly launched Lahore-based English-language daily, The Nation. He also served a brief stint as the capital correspondent of The Frontier Post. By the turn of the century, Ikram’s decade-long association with Thomson Reuters in Islamabad provided him with valuable experience in economic reporting and administrative roles as a senior correspondent managing a team of fellow reporters in the Islamabad Bureau.
In the early 2000s, Ikram moved to Karachi to transition to electronic media, first as the director of programs at CNBC Pakistan and then in a similar role at the launch of a private TV channel, serving as the founding programming director in 2007. After a change in senior management led to confused editorial priorities in the following year, he left the channel and relocated to Singapore, serving as the news editor at ICIS, a news agency specializing in the chemical industry.
The youngest of three siblings, Ikram is survived by his wife Samra Tahir and two grown-up children. Friends and former colleagues mourn the sudden demise of the senior journalist. His body will be flown to Islamabad for the funeral, the time of which will be announced later this week.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
