Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Like every year, this year too, Parveen Shakir’s friends, colleagues from the Customs Group (now Inland Revenue Services) and fans on Tuesday visited her grave in the H-8 Graveyard to observe her 29th death anniversary (died: Dec 26, 1994) and offered Fateha for the departed soul.
Parveen Shakir was a trendsetter and an officer of the Customs Group. She served in Islamabad. As poetess she is considered even today a symbol of women empowerment and a role model for the young emerging women writers and poets.
On the occasion, members of the Parveen Shakir Trust (PST) laid down a floral wreath at her grave and warmed their hearts by recounting their late friend’s contributions. They pledged to relive her memory from the trust’s platform through various events such as Mushaira, Seminars, literary dialogue and above all the annual Aks-e-Khushbu Award for the best works of poetry and fiction, etc.
The floral wreath and attending her grave is also an annual ritual the PST performs without fail.
Along with members of the trust including Majid Qureshi, Muhammad Siddique, Rubina Siddique, members of a special contingent of the Pakistan Customs sent by Collector Customs, Dr Asif Mehmood Jah, Parveen Shakir’s batch mate Nazim Saleem, Zaheer Dar (Customs) fans of Parveen Shakir paid rich tributes to Parveen Shakir and they too laid down a floral wreath on her grave.
Parveen Shakir’a poetry collections “Khushbu” and others are among the best sellers even today. She was an officer of Income Tax group in Islamabad and met with a fatal accident that claimed her life on Dec 26, 1994 while she was on her way to office. At that time, she was only 42.
The credit to relive her memory also goes to her fast friend and former federal secretary Parveen Qadir Agha who organizes the annual floral wreath laying and offering of Fateha. This year, however, she could not make it owing to her poor health.
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