By Matters India Reporter
Mumbai, Sept 13, 2023: Walter Alfred, known for his extensive coverage of historic events in the last century, died September 13 in Mumbai.
He died at his residence at Mira Road, a suburb of Mumbai, his daughter Anita confirmed.
“Papa would have turned 103 later this month. He passed away at 1:30 am peacefully in sleep at his Mira Road home,” Anita told the Press Trust of India news agency where he had worked for decades.
Alfred’s career as a correspondent of India’s premier news agency took him around the world.
He had covered India’s Independence and Indira Gandhi’s Emergency, reported the India-Pakistan and Vietnam wars, besides rubbing shoulders with leaders, including Jawaharlal Nehru, Pakistani General Ayub Khan, and former Indonesian premier Sukarno.
His rich tapestry of experiences included encounters with world leaders, moments of arrest in Pakistan, and reporting from war zones.
Born and raised in Mangalore, a port city in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, Alfred was fascinated with journalism as a youth. He studied undergraduate degree in history at the Government College in Mangalore and later continued his education at Khalsa College in Mumbai.
Three days after the 1971 India-Pakistan war, Alfred was arrested on espionage charges in Pakistan and imprisoned for a month in Rawalpindi.
He was PTI’s Southeast Asia correspondent stationed in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Singapore, helping him expand his global journalistic footprint.
Although he retired in 1980 after a 60-year career in journalism, he continued his profession. He taught journalism at New Delhi’s Indian Institute of Mass Communication.
In 1997, he returned to Mumbai and continued to contribute articles for Indonesian and Malaysian newspapers for several more years.