Thaindian News

Srinagar, May 26 (IANS) Over 2,000 mourners in Kashmir Thursday joined the funeral prayer of local doctor Syed Arshad Abbas who was killed in an air ambulance’s crash in Haryana’s Faridabad near Delhi a day earlier.

All eyes were moist when the body of 27-year-old Abbas reached his ancestral Nowlari village in the afternoon. His father, Syed Abdul Majid, is also a doctor by profession.

The body was flown to Srinagar after the autopsy. From Srinagar airport, it was carried to his ancestral Nowlari village near Pattan town, 24 km from the summer capital in Kashmir’s Baramulla district.

Abbas died in an air ambulance crash in Faridabad Wednesday night along with nine other people. He was escorting a critically ill patient who was being flown from Patna to Delhi in the plane.

Abbas was the emergency medical officer at Apollo Hospital in Delhi where he was doing his fellowship in emergency medicine.

“His duties included emergency medical evacuation and rescue of critically ill patients,” a senior doctor at Apollo Hospital told IANS on phone.

Thousands of mourners joined the funeral prayer of the doctor in the village where he was later buried in the family’s ancestral graveyard.

Senior Shia leaders, Molvi Ifftekhar Hussain Ansari and Molvi Abbas Ansari, where present when the body reached the village.

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah expressed grief at the death of the young doctor and prayed for peace to his soul.

Abbas was the only son of his parents.

The Pilatus PC-12 single-engined turbo-prop aircraft was flying to Delhi from Patna, rushing a seriously ill patient for specialized medical treatment when the crash occurred at 10.40 p.m., five minutes after it lost contact with the air traffic control at Delhi airport, aviation officials said.

The aircraft was descending from 8,000 feet when it went off the air traffic control (ATC) radar, an official said.

While seven of those killed were on board the air ambulance, three women died on the ground after the plane crashed into their house.