Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, died on January 7 and just hours later his party PDP chose his daughter Mehbooba Mufti as his successor. He crafted an impossible coalition with BJP in the Muslim-majority state. Sayeed, 79, breathed his last at AIIMS this morning after remaining on ventilator for the past few days. Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid glowing tributes to Sayeed and offered homage to him at the technical area of the Palam airport before the body was flown to Srinagar in an air force plane.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh was deputed by the prime minister to represent the Centre in the funeral. Draped in the national tricolour and the red-and-white flag of the state, the coffin was later taken from his official residence in Srinagar to the ancestral graveyard in Anantnag. He was given a state funeral before being laid to rest with full state honours as thousands of his admirers and party activists paid him homage. The ‘Namaaz-e-Janazah’ (funeral prayers) of the departed leader was offered in the Sher-e-Kashmir Cricket Stadium in Srinagar in which thousands of mourners took part.

About Sayeed:-

• Born in Baba Mohalla of Bijbehara in Anantnag district on January 12, 1936, Sayeed had his early education at a local school and graduated from S P College, Srinagar.
• He went on to obtain a law degree and Master’s degree in Arab History from Aligarh Muslim University.
• The high—points in the political journey of Sayeed, who would have turned 80 on January 12, was his being catapulted to the chair of free India’s first Muslim Home Minister in 1989 in the V P Singh government and, years later, becoming the Chief Minister of the restive state for a second time in 2015, heading a coalition with BJP, which had its first brush with power in the only Muslim—majority state.