PESHAWAR, May 29: A number of Afghans gathered at a local mosque here on Wednesday to offer Fateha for the five Afghan musicians who died in road accident near Mazar-i-Sharif two weeks ago.

The musicians, who had lately shifted to Afghanistan from Peshawar, met with the accident when they were going back from a concert in Kunduz on 17th. The car in which they were travelling collided with a truck and all the inmates including five musicians and the driver died instantly. They were buried at their ancestral graveyard at Mazar-i-Sharif the following day.

They included singers, Yousaf Qasmi, his brother, Yaqoob Qasmi and his son, Usman Qasmi and tabla player, Aleem Bakhtari and his brother Qand Agha. Many Afghan and Pakistani poets, singers and music-loving people attended the ceremony.

Peshawar has been the permanent residence of hundreds of Afghan musicians due to the imposition of the ban on the music first by Mujahideen and then by the Taliban government. The Fateha was arranged by a Peshawar-based organisation, Association of All Musicians of Afghanistan. The president of the association told Dawn that with the installation of Karzai-led government, many of musicians were leaving for Afghanistan.

He also appealed to the international community, specially the UN to make efforts for the promotion of music in Afghanistan because they have lost of their musical heritage during past two decades of turmoil.—AY