SRINAGAR: Gowhar Ahmad, former IAS officer is no more. He was around 70.
Informed sources said he had been admitted to a chest disease hospital for his COVID-19 infection. He breathed his last there Saturday afternoon. He had been declared Covid-19 negative but he died of post-Covid complications, family sources said.
Gowhar is survived by two sons. One is worked in an offshore company and another is serving the Jk bank.
Gowhar started his career in the information department, was writing occasionally. He then moved to other departments. He retired somewhere after 2010.
Basically a resident of Khanyar, Mir Gowhar was now living near Sanat Nagar. Mir Gowhar Ahmad was the son of Kashmir’s famed Maulood Khawan Late Mir Ahmadullah of Khanyar.
Born in May 1950, Gowhar started his career as an information officer and then served in different capacities to various departments including MD J&K Agro Industries Corporation, Secretary SSRB, Secretary to Trade Commissioner J&K New Delhi, Addl Secretary PWD, Secretary to Govt Health and Med Education and finally retired on superannuation as Member J&K Special Tribunal in 2009. Following his retirement, he took to social work. He was a highly knowledgeable person and reading was his favourite pastime.
He is survived by two sons, two brothers and one sister and their extended families. A large number of relations and family friends participated in the funeral and his body was laid to rest at Wanabal graveyard amidst signs and sobs.
According to the family, keeping in view the Covid protocol his death will be mourned for three days only and there will be no congregational Faateh Khawani. The family has requested family friends not visit their residence to condole the death.
Author and colleague of Mir Gowhar wrote on his Facebook: “As I knew him, he was an intelligent and decent officer and a man of integrity who stayed away from the corridors of power. His conviction was strong and he never indulged in sycophancy. No wonder, he was always ignored in comparison to less competent colleagues when it came to posting an officer on a so-called significant bureaucratic position.”
