Srinagar, March 20: Former MLA from Gurez and senior BJP leader Faqeer Mohammad Khan allegedly shot himself at his government-allocated quarters in Srinagar’s high-security Tulsibagh area on Thursday.
Official sources told the Srinagar-based news-gathering agency Kashmir Dot Com that Khan was found in a pool of blood after allegedly shooting himself with the service rifle of one of his PSOs in Quarter Number 9A.
He was immediately taken to SMHS Hospital in Srinagar, where doctors on duty declared him dead on arrival, they said.
Faqeer Mohammad Khan, son of Juma Khan and a resident of Gurez in north Kashmir’s Bandipora district, was a seasoned politician. He won the 1996 J&K Assembly elections as an independent candidate and served as a Member of the erstwhile Legislative Assembly (MLA).
In the recently held 2024 Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections, Khan contested from the Gurez (ST) seat on a BJP ticket but lost to the National Conference’s Nazir Ahmad Khan Gurezi by a margin of 1,049 votes.
Police have launched an investigation into the circumstances surrounding his death. (KDC)
