Khairpur's last ruler Talpur laid to rest

The last ruler of the formerly princely state of Khairpur in Sindh, who passed away on Monday, was laid to rest at a graveyard in Kot Diji on Tuesday, with tens of thousands of people attending his Namaz-e-Janaza and burial.

Mir Ali Murad Khan Talpur, who signed the accession of Khairpur to Pakistan, breathed his last at the age of 93, having survived death at the age of nine months when a bullet, allegedly fired accidentally from a gun in his father's hands, pierced one of his lungs.

"I never saw my father happy in his entire life," Mehdi Raza Khan Talpur, one of his two sons, said while talking to the media at the funeral. "But now I believe he will be happy because he always considered life an imprisonment of the soul."

Allama Shehansha Naqvi, who led the Namaz-e-Janaza, remarked that an important chapter in the history of Khairpur had closed with his death. "One of his messages was that it is possible for people to remain divinely connected with the Almighty even if they possess a lot of wealth," he said.

Born on June 29, 1933, in Brighton, England, he was named after King George V. Talpur later attended St Bonaventure's High School in Hyderabad and graduated from Aitchison College, Lahore, before leaving for the UK in 1950 to pursue higher studies at Cambridge University.

Talpur was enthroned in July 1947 as Khairpur's ruler while he was still a minor and his father, Faiz Muhammad Khan Talpur, was alive, on the recommendation of George Mountbatten. He signed an accession agreement with the provincial govt, headed by the then CM Mir Ghulam Hussain Khan Talpur, on October 3, 1947. Six days later, on October 9, 1947, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah signed the accession.

However, his state retained its authority and even its own army. The military powers of the state were handed over to Pakistan following an agreement in February 1949.

Under the deceased prince, Khairpur's status gradually changed from a semi-controlled to a fully administered province until November 10, 1954, when Khairpur's provincial assembly passed a resolution merging itself with Pakistan. Ten days later, Talpur's status as an independent ruler was abolished.

His family resides in Khairpur's Faiz Mahal, a late-18th-century palace built in 1798 by his forefather, Mir Sohrab Khan Talpur.