Only surviving son of Pakistan’s first president Iskandar Mirza passes away in US

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File photo of Humayun Mirza. Courtesy The Doon School.

  • Humayun Mirza passes away on Sunday in Washington.
  • A highly accomplished man, Humayun Mirza, moved to US where he earned his MBA from Harvard.
  • He wrote two books, “From Plassey to Pakistan: The Family History of Iskander Mirza” and “Son of a President and Heir to a Throne”, his autobiography.


WASHINGTON: The only son of Pakistan’s first president Iskander Mirza passed away on Sunday in Washington, according to a Dawn report.

Per the report, Humayun Mirza, 93, breathed his last at his home in Bethesda, Maryland, on the night between June 12 and 13.

He was born in Pune, India, on Dec 9, 1928.

“Humayun Mirza was the second of six children of Iskander Mirza and his first wife Rifaat Begum,” it said, adding that his younger brother, Enver Mirza, had died in a plane crash in 1953.

He was a highly educated person and wrote two books and retired as a senior World Bank official in 1988.

Humayun got his early education from one of India’s finest boarding schools, The Doon School, in Dehradun before moving to the US. He had earned his MBA from Harvard University.

His first wife was the daughter of the US ambassador to Pakistan, Horace Hildreth. He later got married to Marilia Mandelli, who is a Brazilian.

In his autobiography, “Son of a President and Heir to a Throne”, published last year, Mirza wrote: “My life has been full, I have a loving wife, Marilia, who takes good care of me, and two daughters, Zareen and Samia. I have three brilliant grandchildren”.

According to Dawn, the Mirzas are from a wealthy feudal family in Bengal, with close ties to the British monarchy.

Humayun Mirza’s grandfather, Fateh Ali Mirza belonged to the ruling house of Murshidabad.

He was also a close friend of former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.