Funeral of Gilani offered at Presidential Palace

KABUL (HPC) chairman Pir Syed Ahmad Gilani’s funeral prayers were offered at the Presidential Palace on Monday morning.

President Ashraf Ghani, former president Hamid Karzai, former jihadi leaders and government officials attended the funeral for Gilani who breathed his last on Saturday evening at a National Directorate of Security hospital in Kabul. He was 84.

President Ghani and other government officials paid respect to the late top peace negotiator on arriving at the funeral site at Salam Khani House and later joined the funeral led by former veteran jihadi commander Abdul Rab Rassoul Sayyaf.

The funeral participants prayed for the departed soul of Gilani and wished him a chosen place in the Heaven, a statement from the Presidential Palace said.

Foreign diplomats in Kabul also attended Gilani’s funeral and paid respect. President Ghani hailed services of Gilani as a jihadi leader and HPC chairman.

Offering condolences to the family of Gilani and the people of Afghanistan, the president said: “Today we say good bye to someone who the people of Afghanistan accepted as the chief reconciliatory.”  

Being a religious personality, Gilani always believed in moderate Islamic ways and promoted the message of unity and solidarity, the president said of the spiritual leader, who headed the peace body for almost one year.

Ghani said Pir Gilani wanted the Islamic Ummah to be united from Iraq to India and to the US. The former HPC chairman was a jihadi leader. “I am personally thankful to Pir Sahib who in difficult circumstances accepted the offer of the unity government to take charge of HPC and in a very short time he struck the historic peace deal with Gulbadin Hikmatyar, head of the Hizb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA).”

Pir’s son, Hamid Gilani spoke on behalf of the Gilani family and thanked President Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah for praising the former HPC chairman as national and jihadi figure and said he and his family would always stand by the government.

He also hailed Mohammad Karim Khalili, deputy chairman of the HPC, for making arrangements for Gilani’s funeral.

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