Jinnah, Partition & a secret: 2 Mumbai doctors to receive Pakistan’s top honour

MUMBAI: Two doctors from Mumbai’s Parsi community, a physician and a radiologist, will be conferred Pakistan’s highest civilian honour, the Nishan-e-Imtiaz, for keeping Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s terminal illness secret, according to a federal minister.Planning minister Ahsan Iqbal announced the decision in a post on X after Pakistan declared its nominations for civilian and military honours on August 14, news agency PTI reported."I feel honoured to have had the privilege, as chairman of the Awards Committee, of nominating for the Nishan-e-Imtiaz two remarkable doctors, a physician and a radiologist, both members of Bombay’s Parsi community, who faithfully guarded the secret of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s terminal illness,” he said.Iqbal said revealing the seriousness of Jinnah’s health at the time could have affected the creation of Pakistan in 1947.“Many historians regard this as one of the most consequential secrets of the twentieth century.