UP ex-minister and SP leader Khwaja Haleem dies at 75

Aligarh, February 16

Former Uttar Pradesh minister and senior Samajwadi Party leader Khwaja Haleem passed away at a hospital in New Delhi after suffering a cardiac arrest, his family sources said.

He was 75 and is survived by his wife, two daughters and a son.

Haleem died on Thursday night and his body would be laid to rest at his family graveyard, near the Eidgah grounds on Friday afternoon, they said.

The former state minister suffered a massive heart attack last Friday and was admitted to the Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College and Hospital in Aligarh. As his condition deteriorated, he was shifted to a hospital in New Delhi on Monday afternoon.

Haleem, who belongs to a family of freedom fighters, completed his masters from Aligarh Muslim University in 1969. He started his political career with the Youth Congress in the early 1970s.

He later joined the Lok Dal and was elected to the Vidhan Sabha from Aligarh Assembly constituency in 1980. He remained a Mulayam Singh loyalist ever since and was elected twice for the Vidhan Parishad.

In 1990, Haleem was appointed the chairman of Uttar Pradesh Minority Commission and was the member of the Samajwadi Party Central Committee for nearly two decades. In 2014, he was appointed advisor in tourism department by then chief minister Akhilesh Singh Yadav. PTI