Srinagar, Nov 25: For a moment, life in the City Centre - Lal Chowk - came to a grinding halt Wednesday afternoon as Kashmir bid tearful adieu to the doyen of Urdu journalism in Kashmir, Khawaja Sanaullah Bhat.
Thousands of people representing all walks of life offered funeral prayers of the Chief Editor of the Urdu daily ‘Aftaab’.
Jamiat Ahlihadees President Showkat Ahmed Shah led the funeral prayers.
The doyen of Urdu journalism breathed his last Tuesday evening after prolonged illness.

People from different walks of life including Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah; Finance Minister Abdur Rahim Rather, Chief Minister’s Political Advisor, Mubarak Gul, the Chairman of Hurriyat Conference (G), Syed Ali Geelani; Chairman of Hurriyat Conference (M), Mirwaiz Umar Farooq; Chairman of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, Muhammad Yasin Malik; Hurriyat (M) executive member Shabir Ahmed Shah, Nayeem Ahmed Khan, Agha Hassan Budgami, Maulana Tari, Zafar Akbar Bhat and several others attended the funeral prayers.
Senior journalists and other members of the media fraternity also attended the funeral prayers of Bhat.
The JKLF Chairman, Malik also shouldered the coffin of Khawaja from Aftaab market to the place of funeral prayers opposite the gutted Palladium Cinema.
Malik, along with several top separatists, was in the front row offering prayers while Chief Minister Omar Abdullah preferred to remain in a back row.
The administration diverted the traffic from other side of the road creating a space for offering prayers.
JKLF members were seen managing the program. The rush of the mourners was increasing with every passing minute.
The corpse of Khawaja was later taken to his ancestral house in Soura where he was laid to rest in the compound as per his wish.
Hundreds of people including journalists, writers, academicians, doctors, advocates, businessmen, politicians and others from different walks of life came to see the last glimpse of Khawaja at the Aftaab market outside the office of the Aftaab newspaper.
Prominent personalities of the State also shared their personal experiences with Khawja and paid rich tributes the departed soul.
Pro-freedom procession
Soon after the funeral prayers ended, youth started raising ‘pro-freedom and pro-Islam slogans’ and demanded ‘right to self-determination’ and ‘demilitarization of the State’.
Youth followed the car of Syed Ali Geelani who was in the funeral and marched from Palladium Cinema to HS High Street which lasted for more than 40 minutes.
However, the procession dispersed peacefully at HSHS with the car of the ailing octogenarian leader’s car accelerating speedily toward his Rehmatabad Hyderpora residence.