Uncontroversial Rahimullah Yousafzai in The Eyes of Colleagues
The war correspondent was considered a bona fide expert on the ever-evolving security situation in Afghanistan and tribal areas of Pakistan
An uncontroversial and impartial veteran journalist Rahimullah Yousafzai breathed his last on September 9 after losing the battle against cancer.
His funeral prayer will be held on Friday in his native village Inzargi in Mardan district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).
The death of the veteran journalist has left the community aggrieved.
The people who have worked with Rahimullah remember him as an archetype of how a journalist should be.
Prime Minister Imran Khan, Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Javed Bajwa, and other prominent figures expressed condolence on the demise of the veteran journalist.
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The war correspondent was considered a bona fide expert on the ever-evolving security situation in Afghanistan and tribal areas of Pakistan.
Several colleagues of the veteran journalist said that he was not an arriviste but struggled his way to the top.
His colleagues said that they have never witnessed an unbiased and uncontroversial journalist like Rahimullah in their careers.
They expressed that impartiality while forming an opinion on an issue was the strength of the veteran journalist.
They said that the deceased has left a void that seems very hard to be filled as he was an institution within himself.
For a long period of his life, Rahimullah served as a war correspondent after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
The deceased was among the first journalists who visited Kandahar in Afghanistan in 1995 to report on the Taliban formed in 1994.
He was the only journalist in the world who had interviewed Mullah Omar, the founder of the Afghan Taliban.
He was also the last correspondent to have interviewed Al-Qaeda Chief Osama Bin Laden who was killed in May 2011.
Rahimullah Yousafzai was the first journalist from KP province whose byline went in the American weekly magazine Newsweek.
He was conferred Tamgha-e-Imtiaz and Sitara-i-Imtiaz by the government of Pakistan for his unmatched services in the field of journalism.
