An officer of Rural Development Department (RDD) on Friday died due to “unknown circumstances” in the frontier valley of Gurez’s Tulail Tehsil while “on duty” in North Kashmir’s Bandipora district.
An official identified the deceased as Mohammad Saleem Darzi, 48 posted at Tulail as a Block Development Officer. “He is originally from Achabal Anantnag. He collapsed while he was readying for ablution to offer Friday prayers during break,” the official said.
Saleem was declared brought dead when he was moved to a nearby medical facility, the officials said
BMO Gurez , Doctor Tahira said the body was brought to SDH Gurez for postmortem to determine the circumstances under which he had died.
The officials said that it is presumed that he may have died of suffocation due to Gas Geyser.
Meanwhile Deputy Commissioner Bandipora, Owais Ahmad while expressing shock over the demise of the officer said efforts are on to bring the body from Gurez valley as soon as the weather improves.