Twitter users immediately pounced on Express News for its “extremely insensitive” and “disrespectful” broadcast towards Edhi.
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With these very, very important people in attendance, in terrorism-inflicted Pakistan, security was at the highest level imaginable, which basically meant that the aam awam, the common people to whom Abdul Sattar Edhi had devoted his life, were not able to participate as effectively as they may have wished.
Rehmatullah Mosa Ghazi, Charge d’Affaires at the Afghanistan Embassy (R), greets Abdul Sattar Edhi, Pakistan social worker, at the Afghan embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, March 27, 2002.
Speaking to the dignitaries, Faisal Edhi said, “A heavy responsibility lies on my shoulders now”. Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif termed the death of Abdul Sattar Eidhi an irreparable loss for the people of Pakistan.
The renowned humanitarian, who was the founder and chairman of the Edhi Foundation, was diagnosed with kidney failure three years ago but was since unable to receive a transplant due to his poor health.
The Edhi foundation was at the forefront of the response past year when a devastating heatwave struck Karachi, a city of about 20 million people.
The US-based Associated Press in a news dispatch, which was widely used by media organisations across the world, said Edhi was known in Pakistan as “Angel of Mercy” for his social work that also won him worldwide acclaim.
“My father’s dream was to turn Pakistan into a welfare state and he single-handedly started the Edhi Foundation which carries on its operations through private donations”.
However, he expressed hope that the Edhi family will continue the great humanitarian’ mission.
Edhi was buried in a plot in one of the many free graveyards run by his philanthropic foundation, wearing the clothes he died in – one of his two sets of shalvar kamiz, the only clothes he owned and that he washed himself. He was a protuberant Pakistani philanthropist, social activist and humanitarian.
The Edhi Foundation operates ambulance services, orphanages, women’s shelters, dispensaries and morgues in several Pakistani cities.
Born in Gujarat in British India, Edhi and his Muslim family moved to Pakistan in 1947 during the violent partition of the subcontinent between the newborn nations of India, majority Hindu, and Pakistan, majority Muslim.
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Nominated several times for the Nobel peace prize, including this year, Edhi won a host of worldwide awards in recognition of his work.
