Meet Shafique ul Hassan who spends hours to spread awareness among Indians

Hyderabad: Mr. Shafique ul Hassan is a Delhi based journalist of unique kind who wakes up at 5 a.m. every day and reads dozens of newspapers to sort out important news items with an intention share them with friends, relatives, leaders etc.

Personal background

Mr. Hassan started his career as a young journalist at the age of 16 years when he published a Hindi newspaper.

Later, when his father admonished him to complete his formal education, he discontinued publishing it.

He sought admission in XI class. After passing XII class examination, he took admission in BA course in IGNOU. Later, he completed MA in Political Science from Jamia Millia Islamia.

He visited many cities like Aligarh, Lucknow, Bangalore etc.

Professional career

Mr. Hassan came to Delhi on 13th April 1986. He said that he had only Rs. 5 in his pocket at that time. He started his work from Qarol Bagh in New Delhi.

He took an interview of Haji Mastan. He covered Saddam Husain’s news item.

In 1987, he started an advertising agency by name, “Sky Adds” which fetched him Rs. 4500 per month.

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Sharing news on WhatsApp

The turning point in his life came when he read the news of the incident of lynching Junaid which was published on 24th June 2017. He started sharing news items on WhatsApp.

Initially, he started sending news items to 100 persons. He said that his craze for sharing sensitive news items increased due to the growth of social media network. He told that he has been sharing news items for the past 20 months.

Now, he has 1600 persons in his network who share the news items with thousands of people throughout the world.

Mr. Hassan told that every day, he covers 40 to 50 news items.

He lamented that after the launch of TV, people gave up reading newspapers. He desires people to inculcate the habit of reading.

His intention behind sharing news items on WhatsApp is to change the discourse of the people.

Talking about TV programs, he said that earlier, programs used to be interesting and informative but now almost all the TV channels are dancing to the tunes of the Govt. It is a dangerous trend for democracy.

Mr. Hassan made it clear that he is doing this work only out of passion and concern for millat. He wished that it would be better if some institution comes forward to take up this assignment. He further told that he has no commercial interest.

Some VIP’s like Mr. Mahesh Bhatt, Dr. Aslam Parvaiz, VC of MANUU, Prof. Akhtarul Wasey, VC of Jodhpur University, Mr. Zafar Sareshwalla, former Chancellor of MANUU etc. encouraged him.

Mr. Mahesh Bhatt told him that he is able to speak a lot of things because he reads many books and newspapers. Mr. Bhatt also told him to appeal to his community to inculcate the habit of readying which is getting diminished due to Twitter, WhatsApp, Facebook and other social media.

Personal life not a hindrance

In 2018, after his marriage, he went for honeymoon to Europe for 16 days however, he did not discontinue sending news items.

Compiled a book

At the end of the interview, he said that he has compiled a book containing more than 100 pages which includes the opinions of many journalists.