Srinagar: Rich tributes were paid to Police Sub-Inspector Arshad Ashraf Meer on his first death anniversary.
He had fallen to the bullets of terrorists last year in the line of duty at the Khanyar area of Srinagar.
Arshad was a common Kashmiri boy whose journey started at a local school.
He excelled in academics, earned a Masters in Botany and strived hard to become a respectable policeman.
Arshad leaves behind a bereaved family that may never recover, an unfinished house he keenly built for which a house-warming ceremony was on the cards, a broken marriage prospect, and a volley of expectations.
To pay tributes to their colleague, scores of his batch mates visited the residence of Arshad in Kalmoona.
They pledged to keep his mission alive. Besides, people from all walks of life visited his residence to pay tributes to the fallen officer.
Arshad was killed in a hit-and-run terror attack last year in the Khanyar area of Srinagar.
He was a 2020-batch Sub-Inspector and a resident of Kalmoona in the Ramhal belt of the Handwara area of the Kupwara district.
On that fateful day, he was posted at Police Station Khanyar.
The incident had occurred near Gousia Hospital, Khanyar after terrorists opened fire at him from point-blank range with a pistol.
Arshad is survived by his parents and three siblings.
His father Muhammad Ashraf, a government teacher, said that he was proud of his son who always “stood for the voice of voiceless”.
“Why was my son snatched away from me? Why did a father have to carry his son’s coffin? Why was my entire world shattered like the shards of glass? What wrong could he have done in his just two years of service?” he said and sought to know what his son’s fault was.
Last year a pall of gloom had descended on the entire Ramhall belt after his body reached his native village Kalmoona and thousands of people assembled to participate in his last rites.