Johannesburg - Charity group Awqaf South Africa on Friday announced its intention to establish a R100 000 endowment fund in honour of anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Timol.
The announcement comes a day after a groundbreaking ruling by the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria, which found that Timol's death amounted to murder.
Timol, 29, was arrested in Johannesburg in October 1971 - and after five days of torture in detention - died after being pushed from the 10th floor of the John Vorster Square police station.
A 1972 inquest then ruled that Timol’s death was suicide.
The case was reopened after the family found new evidence that proved that Timol did not commit suicide, but instead died in police custody in 1971.
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Awqaf SA chairperson Haroon Kalla said launching the Awqaf South Africa Ahmed Timol Endowment Fund was a fitting tribute to the struggle hero.
"[He was] a fearless young man who paid the ultimate sacrifice so that others could bask in the light of constitutional freedom," he said.
“We feel that this would be the best way to honour the memory of Ahmed Timol, and we are excited to make this announcement at such an important juncture. In South Africa, we cannot make progress without institutional memory and development. We feel forward-looking projects such as the Ahmed Timol Endowment Fund can contribute in a very small way to this."
“We also pay tribute to all of those who fell during the anti-apartheid struggle, and that all the families affected enjoy similar closure to that of the Timol family, albeit 46 years down the line.”
Kalla said that beneficiaries of the endowment fund would be young people involved in political and developmental studies.
Awqaf SA, a Muslim NGO founded in 2000, is an independent community-based and owned trust.
It is dedicated to the establishment of the Islamic institution of waqf, an endowment held in perpetuity, which spends only the income generated from investments to fund a variety of community development projects and programmes.