Times of India: Hockey wizard Mohammed Shahid laid to rest

By Rajeev Dikshit

VARANASI: Thousands of people of the historical city and former Olympians bid last adieu to the hockey wizard Mohammed Shahid with wet eyes as he was laid to rest at Taktakpur graveyard on Thursday afternoon.
With the arrival of Shahid’s mortal remain at his residence on Maqbool Alam road from Gurgaon on Wednesday night, hundreds of his relatives and admirers had gathered. With the dawn the gathering started to increase while many former Olympians including Jafar Iqbal, Ashok Kumar, Sujit Kumar, RP Singh, Shaqil Ahmed and Sardar Singh also visited there to offer floral tributes. Politicians from all political parties also paid homage to Shahid at his residence.
Around 12.45 pm Ashok Kumar and Jafar Iqbal wrapped the body with Indian tri-colour after which his last procession was carried out. This last procession was halted at police lines crossing to take the mortal remains of Shahid inside Dayam Khan mosque to offer Janaje-ki-Namaj and later it marched again towards the graveyard. Police had to divert traffic from Kutchehri Golghar, Pandeypur and Hukulganj crossing till the Shahid’s funeral procession reached Taktakpur due to high number of participants.

The graveyard caretakers had made all preparations for burial before the mortal remains of Shahid reached at the Taktakpur graveyard located few hundred yards away from the same police lines ground, where Shahid had started playing hockey in `70s and also played his last charity match in 2011. Before the rituals of burial was performed UP minister Ram Sakal Gurjar, DIG range Sanjiv Gupta, district magistrate VK Anand and SSP Akash Kulhary also paid tributes.

Following some complication in stomach this former captain of Indian hockey team was admitted to Sir Sunder Lal (SSL) hospital in Banaras Hindu University (BHU) on June 25. When doctors noticed sharp deterioration in his health condition he was referred to Gurgaon based hospital on June 29. But, he died there during the course of treatment on Wednesday morning. He was 56. Shahid is survived by wife, one son, daughter and son-in-law.

Born on April 14, 1960 this master dribbler made his debut in junior team in 1979 to play in Junior World Cup in France and following his impressive performance in Aga Khan Cup he secured a berth in senior team in the same year. When Indian team won gold in Moscow Olympic in 1980 he played as center forward for his team. He was also the member of the Indian team that won silver and bronze medals in Asian games in 1982 and 1986 respectively. He got captaincy of Indian team in 1985. He received Arjuna award in 1980-81 and Padam Shri in 1986.