Pakistani icon given state funeral after plane crash

By Aamir Latif

KARACHI, Pakistan (AA) – A famed Pakistani singer-turned-preacher was buried with full state protocol on Wednesday, as were 16 others who died alongside him in a plane crash last week.

The funeral for Junaid Jamshed, who had been a pioneer of Pakistani pop music before turning to religious work, was held at the Pakistani Air Force base and attended by top civilian and military officials.

Funerals for sixteen other victims were held outside Islamabad’s Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), where the identification of victims was conducted, before the bodies were flown to the victims’ hometowns across the country.

The hospital's spokesman Dr. Waseem Khawaja told Anadolu Agency that 24 bodies were still to be identified from among the 48 victims who were killed when a Pakistan International Airlines plane crashed near Islamabad last week.

Pakistan has a long history of air disasters with 17 crashes since 1965. Some 130 people were killed when a local airline’s plane crashed in Islamabad in April 2012.