Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) leader and former Senator Usman Kakar was laid to rest in his hometown, Muslim Bagh, on Wednesday as tens of thousands of admirers gathered to pay tributes to the Pashtun nationalist leader. In the provincial capital Quetta, Wednesday was declared the day of mourning and shops, markets and all other businesses were shut down.
Senator Kakar died on Monday in Karachi’s Aga Khan Hospital after receiving a lethal blow to the head a day earlier. Physicians say that it is highly unlikely that a mere fall could have caused a wound so deep in the head. According to reports, Kakar was alone at home when the incident occurred. His family members had found him lying unconscious on the floor covered in blood.
Soon after the incident, Kakar was taken to hospital in Quetta, and from there he was shifted to Karachi’s reputed Aga Khan Hospital. He died there on June 21.
His dead body was transported to Balochistan on Tuesday. Along the way in Hub, Uthal, Wadh, Khuzdar and a few other areas, admirers and supporters gathered on the roads in thousands to pay tribute to Kakar’s convoy. They chanted slogans and showered the motorcade, especially the ambulance carrying Kakar’s dead body, in flower petals.
Surrounded by thousands of people, the convoy took more than six hours to transport the dead body to hockey ground from the Sariab road in Quetta. The dead body was kept in a moratorium for the night and then shifted to Muslim Bagh, Kakar’s birthplace, on Wednesday for burial. People once again gathered on the roadsides to pay their tributes.
Tens of thousands of admirers participated in the funeral prayer, including prominent politicians like Manzoor Pashteen, Mohsin Dawar, Mehmood Khan Achakzai, Dr. Abdul Malik Baloch and Mian Iftikhar. JUI’s Moulana Atta Ur Rehman led the funeral prayer and Usman Kakar was finally laid to rest.
The opposition leaders in the Balochistan assembly prayed an absentee prayer in a police station in Quetta where they are leading a protest against the incumbent government.