28/09/2021
Pinto was born in Nairobi on 31 March 1927 to a Kenyan Asian family of Konkani Goan Catholic descent.
Born to immigrant Goan parents hailing from the Indian states of Goa and Maharashtra, his father was an official in the colonial government of Kenya while his mother was a housewife.
At age eight, he was sent to India for his education and spent the next nine years there, passing his matriculation exams at St. Joseph's High School, Arpora, and then studying science at Karnatak College, Dharwar for two years before joining the Indian Air Force in 1944 as an apprentice ground engineer.
When only seventeen, he started an agitation in Bombay against the Portuguese colonial occupation of Goa. His political activism soon made it necessary for him to return to Kenya to avoid being arrested and deported to the Tarrafal concentration camp in Cape Verde.
In 1949, Pinto returned to Kenya and, after a succession of clerical jobs, became involved in local politics aimed at overthrowing British colonial rule in Kenya. He turned to journalism and worked with the Colonial Times and the Daily Chronicle.
In 1965, while in the car with his daughter, Pio Gama Pinto was shot dead at very close range.
