AJK's noted spiritual leader laid to rest.

Byline: Tariq Naqash

MUZAFFARABAD -- Thousands of people poured onto a big playground and the main thoroughfare running along it in the old part of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) capital on Sunday to pay last respects to the noted spiritual leader Mian Mohammad Shafi Jhaagvi at what was one of the biggest funerals in the town in several decades.

Mr Jhaagvi, 74, who was thegaddi nasheen(spiritual heir) of Jhaag Sharif, a shrine located 2km off Lawat village in the upper belt of Neelum valley, had breathed his last on Saturday morning due to cardiac arrest in an Islamabad hospital where he was under treatment since Feb 9 after some health complications.

Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) Chief Minister Barrister Khalid Khurshid, who is related to the late spiritual leader and is also among his disciples, had accompanied his body right from the Islamabad hospital to Muzaffarabad on Saturday and had stayed here overnight to attend the funeral.

Before the funeral prayers in K.H. Khurshid Stadium in the old city, a condolence reference was also held to pay homage to the late spiritual leader.

Speakers who included AJK President Sardar Masood Khan, Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider, GB chief minister Khalid Khurshid, PTI's central joint secretary Khawaja Farooq Ahmed and some others described the late religious leader as...