Pakistan awards top civilian honor to two Mumbai doctors for Jinnah secrecy

A federal minister revealed that two members of Mumbai’s Parsi community—a doctor and a radiologist—will be bestowed Pakistan’s Nishan-e-Imtiaz for maintaining confidentiality about Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s terminal illness. Planning minister Ahsan Iqbal, who chairs the Awards Committee, posted the decision on X after the nation listed its civilian and military honorees on August 14. He argued that revealing Jinnah’s severe health condition could have altered the timing of Partition, a view echoed by Lord Mountbatten, who said he might have postponed the split had he known.

The doctors’ identities were kept private, and the formal investiture will occur on March 23, Pakistan Day. The move follows a previous bestowal of the same award on actor Dilip Kumar in 1998.