Nighat Sultana

Nighat's father, Hasan Ali, was from a Bengali family who worked in the army and was sent to Iraq during World War I; there he married an Iraqi Kurd woman.^[1] Nighat was born in 1935 in Khurdistan, Iraq.^[1] When Nighat was fourteen years old her parents left Iraq and settled in Pakistan at Karachi.

Nighat's father wanted her to become a doctor. She studied nursing and became a nurse and worked in an army hospital before joining films. After some time, her father Hasan suffered from an ailment that rendered his blind. Nighat became the only earner of the family, but the money was not enough and she decided to go to Lahore in the hopes of becoming an actress.^[1]

In 1953, Nighat went to Lahore and there she met director Aslam Irani, who cast her in his film Tarrap, also starring Sudhir, Shammi and Allauddin.^[3]

She made her debut as an actress in 1953.^[4] She worked in many Lollywood films.^[5] She appeared in films Pasban, Nooran, Teray Baghair, Insaf, Tamanna, Rahguzar and Mitti Dian Moortan.^[6] Then she changed her name to Nighat Sultana and later she appeared in films Pazeb, Koh-e-Noor, Afshan, Salgira, Jaisay Jantay Nahin and Afsana Zindagi Ka.^[7] In 1956, she played the leading role in the country's first Sindhi language film Umar Marvi.^[8] Since then she appeared in films Zanjeer, BeGunah, Sukh Ka Sapna, Lakhpati, Jan-e-Bahar and Shehbaz^[9]

She married director Hassan Tariq after the film Neend but they first met on the set of film Saat Lakh where he was working as chief assistant director.^[10] She had two children with Hassan Tariq a son name Tahir Hassan and a daughter actress Reena later Hassan divorced her and she took the custoday of her children.^[11]

Nighat died at her home in Karachi in 16 December 2002.

• Nighat Sultana at IMDb