THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Panakkad Syed Mohammed Ali Shihab Thangal, the supreme leader of the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) who died at the age of 73, was buried in his home state of Kerala Sunday evening with full state honors.
North Kerala’s Panakkad village literally turned into a sea of humanity as hundreds of thousands of mourners started flooding it since the news broke on Saturday evening.
Federal ministers Gulam Nabi Azad and Vayalar Ravi, Kerala Chief Minister VS Achuthanandan, Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, Speaker K Radhakrishnan, Deputy Speaker Jose Baby and a host of leaders cutting across the political spectrum attended the funeral.
President Pratibha Patil, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress Party president Sonia Gandhi sent their condolences to the grieving family.
An alumnus of Cairo’s prestigious Al-Azhar University, Thangal took over up reins of the party in 1975.
His younger brother, Panakkad Syed Hyderali Shihab Thangal, will take over as the interim president of the Kerala unit of the Indian Union Muslim League.
