A 72-year-old retired police officer, who was the local muezzin, was shot dead by terrorists while he was giving azaan – the call for prayer – from a mosque in Jammu and Kashmir's Baramulla district on Sunday, police said.
Recalling the moments before Mohammad Shafi Mir was killed, his cousin Mohammad Mustafa, who was at home, said the call for the pre-dawn prayers was being given by a loudspeaker and suddenly it stopped. Mir's last words were "reham" (mercy), he said.
The "azaan" had stopped at "Ashhadu Anna Mohammadu Rasool-Allah (I bear witness that Mohammad is the messenger of Allah)", Mustafa said.
