Wave of anguish as thousands pay last respects to Budgam doctor

Srinagar: Just two weeks ago, the house echoed with laughter as hundreds gathered for his daughter’s wedding. On Monday, cries of anger and anguish rang through Dr Shahnawaz Dar’s residence in Budgam’s Nadigam village and the streets around it, the celebration so quickly giving way to mourning.

Slogans of ‘Naara-e-Takbeer, Allahu Akbar’ (Allah is the greatest) were heard as several thousands paid their last respects to the 52-year-old killed in a terror attack on Sunday in Gagangir in the Ganderbal district of Jammu and Kashmir.

The Nadigam village, situated just a short distance from the ancestral village of banned Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Sallahudin, was enveloped in mourning as the community came together to honour the memory of the beloved doctor.

“This has come like a bolt of lightning from the sky. The family was still celebrating the wedding and now this news,” said Ali Mohammad, a neighbour of the doctor.

Dar’s funeral procession, marked by the poignant cries of women and the grief-stricken faces in the crowd, was taken to his ancestral graveyard through the

village lanes.