QUETTA, JUN 26 (DNA) – Veteran Balochistan politician and former interim Prime Minister Justice (retd) Mir Hazar Khan Khoso breathed his last at the age of 91 in Quetta on Saturday.

Mir Hazar Khan Khoso passed away after remaining under treatment for a month at a hospital. A jurist, Khoso was a retired judge who previously served as the Chief Justice of the Federal Shariat Court and served as the interim prime minister ahead of the general elections scheduled in May 2013.

Hazar Khan Khoso, born on 30 September 1929), had served as caretaker prime minister from 25 March 2013 to 5 June 2013. In March 2013, the Election Commission of Pakistan had selected Hazar Khan Khoso as the interim prime minister after a parliamentary committee and rival parties failed to agree on a candidate.

The outgoing PPP government had proposed Khoso and a former central bank governor Dr Ishrat Husain, while the main opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz had put forward the name of another retired judge Justice Nasir Aslam Zahid and a politician Rasool Bux Paliejo.

A venerated officer, bearing a reputation of honesty, Mir Hazar Khan Khoso hailed from Goth Azam Khan Khoso in Jaffarabad district of Balochistan.

His first political appointment came as the Acting Governor of Balochistan – an office he kept for three months after the death of Governor Muhammad Musa, who served as the 10th governor of the province from December 17, 1985 to March 12, 1991.

Earlier, having served as judge of the Balochistan High Court, Khoso was promoted to assume the position of Chief Justice of Balochistan High Court for a tenure spanning from 1990 to 1991. As a judicial officer, Khoso had never indulged in any controversy and kept himself away from politics and while being a judge in the superior courts.

After retiring from the provincial court in September 1991, Khoso had taken up the office of Judge of the Federal Shariat Court. After a few years of diligent service, in 1994, Khoso was promoted as Chief Justice of the Federal Shariat Court.

Because of his clean reputation, Khoso had also served as the Balochistan Chairman of the Zakat Council. His son, Advocate Amjad Khan Khoso, had reportedly joined the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf in 2013.

His other son, Mehrab Khan Khoso, had been elected as an MPA to Balochistan Assembly on a ticket of Pakistan Peoples Party in 2008. = DNA

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