Born to immigrant Goan parents hailing from the Portuguese Goa, his father was an official in the colonial government of Kenya while his mother was a housewife.
In 1951, he co-founded the East African Indian Congress, a nationalist political party dedicated to building support for independence amongst the South Asian community of Kenya.
From 1952, he was also a regular contributor to the international services of All India Radio, where he produced a popular anti-colonial program named Goan Newsletter.
[5] He also worked closely with British anti-colonial activists, including the Independent Labour MP Fenner Brockway, to inform the world press of political developments in Kenya.
In 1954, five months after his marriage to Emma Dias, he was rounded up in the notorious Operation Anvil and spent the next four years in detention on Manda Island.
[3] On 24 February 1965, at the Westlands neighbourhood of Parklands in Nairobi, Pinto was shot at close range in the driveway while waiting for the gate to be opened.
At the police lineup however, the accused affirmed that Mak’Anyengo resembled the man who hired them, but he was not the actual culprit who had identified himself as Mak'Anyengo.
[17] An article published in Transition magazine in 1966 noted that a letter was circulated amongst Members of Parliament after Pinto's murder warning of the risks of cooperating with the eastern bloc.
[21] In September 1965, Pinto's wife Emma, was invited to Santiago, Chile, to receive a posthumous prize awarded to her husband by the International Organisation of Journalists for his contribution in journalism to the liberation of African countries from foreign domination and exploitation.