Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman

Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman was the founder and editor of the Jang Group of Newspapers which has currently grown to be one of the most popular Urdu and English newspapers in Pakistan. As a founder of the hugely circulated Jang Group of newspapers, he is a legend in Pakistan. A self-made newspaper magnate he ranks among the most successful newspaper entrepreneurs in Asia.

Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman was born in 1927 to a middle-class family in Gujranwala, where he received his schooling and college education. Having finished his basic education, he graduated in Accountancy from the Punjab University. During the Second World War, his parents moved to New Delhi, capital of the British Indian Empire. It was here that he discovered his love for journalism. The newspaper world attracted him far more than the dull books of accountancy. He had a passion for reading and writing and a fondness for newspapers and magazines. He sat glued to his radio set, listening to the latest war news.

In 1940, when he was still a student, he started a newspaper for Muslims in pre-partition Hindustan fighting in World War II in Delhi. He called it the Jang, or War. This was not an exaggerated name as some believed, but a statement against war, and so Mir Khalil-ur-Rehman made it clear that he was doing this for the soldiers and not to encourage the Second World War.

When the creation of the Muslim-majority State of Pakistan was established on August 14, 1947, Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman moved to Karachi and started publishing the Daily Jang from there which was funded by a loan of 5000 rupees from Abdul Ghani Barq of Ferozsons Printers. Pakistan's Governor General, Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah was delighted due to this move and offered the government's help in running it. Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman however, declined the offer saying that freedom of the press was his motto and the goal for the Fourth pillar of State in Pakistan. He galvanised the press in Pakistan and helped in founding the Council of Pakistan Newspapers Editors (CPNE). He opposed tooth and nail any Government measure or action which curbed the freedom of the press in Pakistan.

Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman's legacy in Pakistan is the well-established Jang Group of newspapers which are published from all the major cities of Pakistan. His newspaper empire is managed by his two sons, Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman and Mir Javed-ur-Rahman. He personally trained them in the science of newspaper management. As a result, besides expanding the Jang newspaper group, they have added to it a powerful GEO television channel which has shaped into Pakistan's one of the most popular television channel and its programmes can also be watched in the US and the UK and many parts of the Islamic world.

Mir Khalil-ur-Rahman continued to work at the newspaper till his death in 1992.