Daily Times

Sindh Minister for Human Settlement Haji Ghulam Murtaza Baloch passed away on Tuesday after battling coronavirus, provincial government spokesman Murtaza Wahab said.Baloch was elected to the Sindh Assembly from PS-88 Malir-II in July 2018 elections.”Haji Ghulam Murtaza Baloch, our colleague in #Sindh Cabinet has passed away today. He was suffering from #COVID?19. He was a genuine political worker & a very polite and humble human being. May Allah SWT bless his soul,” Wahab tweeted.PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah expressed grief on the death of the party’s Malir district president.

“It is very difficult to fill the vacuum created due to his death,” Shah said. Baloch is the second lawmaker in Pakistan who have died from COVID-19 after Shaheen Raza, who succumbed to coronavirus last month. She was a PTI lawmaker in the Punjab Assembly.

Senior PPP leader and Senator Maula Bux Chandio also tested positive for coronavirus after which he went into self-isolation. “My wife and son have also tested positive for the virus,” Chandio said, adding: “I am spending time reading books.” Furthermore, he said that he was ‘fine’.

Earlier in the day, Member of National Assembly (MNA) Munir Khan Orakzai passed away from heart failure in Kurram, just days after the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) lawmaker had recovered from the coronavirus, according to his family.

Irfanullah Khan Orakzai, the deceased lawmaker’s nephew, said his uncle had tested positive for the coronavirus in April but made a full recovery and last tested negative on May 8. He said when the family tried to wake Munir up for morning prayers, he did not respond, upon which he was immediately taken to the hospital, where doctors pronounced him dead on arrival.

Munir, 61, hailed from Kurram district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and was elected to NA-45 in the 2018 elections.