Khayyam accorded state funeral

National Award-winning music director Mohammed Zahir Hashmi, renowned as 'Khayyam', was laid to rest with full state honours at a Muslim cemetery here as prominent Bollywood personalities bid him a tearful adieu, here on Tuesday evening.

Khayyam's mortal remains were kept at his home in Daskshina Park Society, Juhu, to enable people to pay their last respects to the legendary composer who passed away aged 92, following a brief illness, late on Monday.

Around 3.30 p.m. this afternoon, his funeral procession with a Mumbai Police escort team of pallbearers started for the cemetery as a large number of friends, Bollywood personalities and his admirers joined, said his spokesperson Pritam Sharma.

After it reached the Four Bungalow Kabrastan, his body was laid to rest amid a 21-gun salute as Muslim priests performed the last rites.

Khayyam's ailing wife and well-known playback singer Jagjit Kaur also attended on a wheelchair and broke down several times as the funeral rituals were performed.

Many Bollywood personalities including Raza Murad, Javed Akhtar, Gulzar, Ashok Pandit, Tabassum, Sanjay Khan, Poonam Dhillon, Vishal Bharadwaj, Sonu Nigam, Suresh Wadkar, Talat Aziz, Shabbir Kumar, Nitin Mukesh, Jatin Pandit and Lalit Pandit, Uttam Singh, Alka Yagnik, and others visited his home and the burial grounds to pay their last respects.

President Ram Nath Kovind and Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the nation in paying tributes to Khayyam while Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Bharat Ratna Lata Mangeshkar, megastar Amitabh Bachchan and other personalities have also condoled his demise.

The master of the musical baton, Khayyam leaves behind a rich legacy of some of the most memorable songs, classical and modern, in films and private albums, across various genres of music during his career spanning over six decades.

He was conferred several awards including the Padma Shri, Padma Bhushan and the National Award for his soulful tunes in the 1981 film, "Umrao Jaan".