The newly elected Pakistan’s President Dr Arif Alvi shares he has a good link with India. A short biography published on the website of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) party reveals his father Dr Habib ur Rehman Elahi Alvi was a dentist to Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, before partition.
The 69-year-old former dentist is one of the founding members of PTI and is a close ally of Khan too. He was elected for the top-most chair on Tuesday by defeating Pakistan Peoples Party candidate Aitzaz Ahsan and the Pakistan Muslim League-N nominee Maulana Fazl ur Rehman in a three-way contest.
The 13th President of Pakistan also added his family had migrated from India after partition. His predecessors Mamnoon Hussain’s family was from Indian state of Agra.
Born as Ari fur Rehman Alvi in Karachi in 1947, he inherited dentist profession from his father, who practiced dentistry in India before independence and later did the same in Saddar, Karachi, following the family’s migration.
Dr. Alvi’s father was even linked to Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan’s first prime minister. He was a Trustee of the trust established by Shirinbai Jinnah (Quaid-e-Azam’s siter).
Alvi started his political career at very young age, when he was a student, about five decades ago by being a part of the students’ wing of Jamaat-i-Islami. He protested against military ruler Ayub Khan too.
The website adds, “During one of the protests on the Mall Road in Lahore he was shot and wounded and still proudly carries a bullet embedded in his right arm as a mark of his struggle for democracy in Pakistan.”
