PDP’s Waheed Para expresses anguish over Er Rashid’s absence during father’s final moments

Srinagar, May 18: Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leader Waheed Ur Rehman Para on Monday expressed anguish over jailed Member of Parliament Engineer Rashid being unable to be with his father during his final moments, saying the tragedy reflected the deep human cost of conflict and incarceration in Kashmir.

In a statement, Para said Er Rashid, an elected MP, remains behind bars while his father “returns to the earth without the touch of his son’s hands, without one final embrace, without the comfort of seeing him beside his deathbed.”

“There are sorrows that death brings and then there are sorrows that outlive death itself,” Para said, adding that losing a parent from afar leaves behind “a wound time never closes.”

The PDP leader said the pain of absence during the death of a loved one is something many families in Kashmir understand deeply.

“In Kashmir, politics does not stay in parliaments or prisons; it enters homes, sits beside hospital beds, and breaks families in silence,” he said.
Para further remarked that while “the personal is political,” in Kashmir “the political becomes heartbreak itself.”

He said Rashid’s father carried both “pride and pain” — pride in his son’s political journey and pain in not having him beside him during his final moments.

“Some prisons are built with walls. Others are built with distance, helplessness, and the cruelty of being unable to say goodbye,” Para added.

Engineer Rashid, who is lodged in Delhi’s Tihar Jail in a terror funding case, was elected to the Lok Sabha from Baramulla constituency while in custody.