PML-N lawmaker Shaukat Cheema succumbs to coronavirus

Loses month-long battle with the virus, had been on ventilator for past 10 days

LAHORE: Member of Punjab Assembly Shaukat Manzoor Cheema succumbed to the coronavirus on Wednesday, after a month long battle with the deadly virus.

He had been on the ventilator for the past 10 days and was admitted at the Pakistan Kidney and Liver Institute (PKLI) in Lahore.

The 66-year-old MPA hailed from Gurjanwala and was elected on a Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) ticket in 2018 from PP-51 Gujranwala constituency.

PML-N President and Leader Opposition in National Assembly Shahbaz Sharif offered his condolences to the aggrieved family.

His death is a shock to the party, said Sharif, adding that the lawmaker was a valuable asset to the PML-N and his services cannot be forgotten.

Sharif prayed for the deceased and his family.

The PML-N MPA is the third provincial elected representative to have died in less than a day.

Earlier today, member of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Assembly Mian Jamshed Uddin Kakakhel also succumbed to the deadly coronavirus. He was 65-years-old.

Kakakhel had been shifted to a hospital in Islamabad after his test for the pathogen came positive.

The MPA was elected from the constituency of PK-63 Nowshera on a Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) ticket in the 2018 general elections.

On Tuesday night, Sindh Human Settlement Minister Ghulam Murtaza Baloch lost his life to the novel coronavirus, dealing a blow to the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) as it lost a long-standing ‘jiyala’ to the deadly contagion. Baloch was 56..

Baloch, who was the president of PPP Malir and the Sindh government’s focal person for coronavirus in the district, tested positive for Covid-19 on May 14 and was admitted to a private hospital when he began experiencing severe respiratory distress.