TRIBUTE

PROF. HAMID NASEEM RAFIABADI 

Very sad news for all of us that Prof G M Bhat, a renowned innovator and the only Kashmiri patent holder scientist died in Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Hospital Rainawari on 11 May 2021. He was a researcher, a noble man and a great friend. We met first time in the University of  Kashmir in 1989 when I joined the University and it was like the love at first sight and  we became intimate friends and even starting living together at Saida Kadal and then in Naseem Bagh University in the same residential quarter in early nineties.

Being religiously oriented from very beginning he started a work as a mission to build a Jammah Masjid along with Dr Afzal Wani in the University Campus and was that much engrossed in this work that he had even forgotten himself. I had a great difficulty to convince him through the persuasion of Prof G R Malik to go for higher studies in electronics to AMU Aligarh   and we arranged a programme for this purpose in which we had invited Prof Ghulam Rasool Malik as a chief guest who gave a motivational lecture and we were finally successful to convince him to go for Higher education as there were already many people to take care of construction of the Masjid. After coming back from AMU Aligarh he assumed charge of the Department Of Electronics and also worked in different capacities in Kashmir University. He was a genius and a practising scientist a pious and God fearing

To start with he did his M.Tech in Electronics and Communication Engineering at the Zakir Husain College of Engineering and Technology. Later on he did his Ph D from the same college.

He along with Prof Altaf Pandit at AMU mentored an informal circle of young students and tried to guide them in organization of various educational, cultural and societal programmes. I am witness to the fact that he had played a leading role in construction of the Jamia Mosque in Kashmir University and another in the Mirza Bagh Residential campus of the Kashmir University.

Professor Mohiuddin Bhat was born on 1st February, 1964 at Chewa locality of Safapur, a small township at the banks of world famous Mansbal Lake, some 30 km from Srinagar city. He did his MSc from PG Department of Electronics in 1987 and was appointed lecturer in the same Department in 1988. He became Professor and Director University Science Instrumentation Centre (USIC). He worked as the founder Director Institute of Technology, Dean, School of Applied Sciences &Technology, HoD Electronics & Instrumentation Technology, HoD Electronics and Communication Technology.

Prof Bhat was an excellent innovator and an institution builder and he so to say single handedly founded and developed the Institute of Technology (IOT), Zakura and also the Government College of Engineering & Technology (GCET) at Safapora, and laid down its foundation.

He had been able to get several patents to his credit and he tried his level best to promote “Patentable Research and grassroots innovations”, and he created platforms like TePP Outreach–cum-Innovation Centre, NIF supported Grassroots Innovation & Augmentation Network (GIAN), DST supported Entrepreneurship Cell (EDC) and Technology Incubation Centre at Zakura. He was able to attract the Grassroots Innovators and young innovative minds from Gurez and Karnah Valleys to Rajouri and Poonch regions and sponsored them to design prototype models, technology incubation and marketing of their inventions which were viable and presentable.

He forged many MoUs with many industrial houses and established institution-industry partnerships within and outside J&K. Apart from this innovative scientific and technological contribution he was philanthropic in nature and would organise workshops and short term training events providing training through his technological knowhow to unemployed youth in order to empower them for self reliant. He had close connected with the society and delivered lectures at schools colleges and universities to motivate people for grassroots innovations and also to identify the medicinal plants traditional heeling practices.

The death of Professor Bhat is a great loss to the whole community of scientists and now it is our responsibility to carry his great scientific legacy ahead and make the new generation of science students aware about his monumental contribution and path breaking innovations in technology and science.  May his soul rests in peace and may Allah Taala give strength to Prof.Tasleema Jan, the better half of Prof .Bhat to bear this irreparable loss!

(Author is Head, Department of Religious Studies, Central University of Kashmir. Former Director, Shah-i-Hamadan Institute of Islamic Studies, University of Kashmir Srinagar. He can be reached on hamidnaseem@gmail.com)