KARACHI: The father and son on board the missing Titanic tourist submarine come from one of Pakistan’s most illustrious and wealthy families, which is renowned for its charitable donations. British and Shahzada Dawood, a Pakistani national, and his son Suleman, 19, who spent $500,000 on an opulent vacation together, are members of the Dawood empire, one of Pakistan’s most successful businesses.
According to local media, Hussain Dawood, Shahzada’s father, is one of Pakistan’s wealthiest men and the patriarch of the chain. Aqeel Karim Dhedhi, a business entrepreneur and stock dealer in Karachi, claimed that the Dawoods were responsible for the initial wave of industrialization and funded the government when Pakistan was created in 1947.
“They established significant industrial projects and… gave thousands of people in the young nation employment,” Dhedhi told AFP. One of the biggest humanitarian families in Pakistan, he said, adding, “They don’t boast about any of it.” Shahzada serves as vice chairman of Engro, which is a part of the Dawood group.It claims stakes in petrochemical, telecommunications, agriculture, and energy ventures and recorded income of Rs350 billion ($1.2 billion) in 2022. Shahzada, who had his education in both the UK and the US, currently resides in Britain with his wife Christine, son Suleman, and daughter Alina.
According to a family statement, Shahzada was a “loving father” who had a passion for photography, particularly wildlife photography, and for exploring various natural areas.Suleman enjoys volleyball, Rubik’s Cube puzzles, science fiction literature, and “learning new things,” it was noted.According to the organization’s website, Shahzada is a trustee of the California-based Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute (SETI), which searches for signs of extraterrestrial life.
His interest in exploration extends to space. Shahzada and his family are admired for their charitable activities, especially for giving young people from low-income families access to business and educational possibilities.The Dawood Foundation has concentrated on developing educational institutions throughout Pakistan since the 1960s, especially to meet the demand for engineers and technologists.Shahzada also serves on the board of the Prince’s Trust, a British organisation that aids in the employment, education, and training of young people. He delivered the keynote address at a United Nations panel discussion on equality in agriculture in February 2020.
“Women are underrepresented in such a crucial area as our food and means of subsistence. We must first consider the viewpoint of women, he stated. Shahzada and his father Hussain were both mentioned in the so-called Panama Papers, a 2016 disclosure of more than 11.5 million financial and legal documents that revealed the world’s wealthy and powerful’s hidden offshore accounts. Between 2005 and 2009, both were recorded as having accounts in the British Virgin Islands.
