Written by Bashaarat MasoodSrinagar | Updated: October 10, 2025 07:27 AM IST 3 min readZahid Mukhtar had been unwell from sometime now and breathed his last early Thursday morning.Poet, writer, actor, broadcaster and journalist Zahid Mukhtar, who passed away at his Anantnag home Thursday at 69, wore many hats – sometimes all at once. A man who seamlessly transitioned between Urdu and Kashmiri, Mukhtar straddled the two languages with ease – as comfortable here as he was on television or in the quiet office of the weekly newspaper he edited.Mukhtar had been unwell from sometime now and breathed his last early Thursday morning.Born in South Kashmir’s Anantnag in 1956, Mukhtar’s first love was poetry but he soon began writing short stories – with the first one, ‘Chout’ (Injury), being published in 1976. Over the last five decades, Mukhtar moved between poetry and prose in Urdu and Kashmiri languages, writing poetry collections that include ‘Ibtida’ (The Beginning) and ‘Sulagtay Chinar] (Blazing Chinars) in Urdu, and ‘Timbri Halm’ (A Hem Filled with Sparks) in Kashmiri. His short story collections include ‘Jhelum ka Teesra Kinara (Jhelum’s third bank) and ‘Suraj ka Pehla Andhera’ (The First Darkness of the Sun).His short story ‘Pul-e-Sirat’ (The Bridge of Judgment Day) — the bridge in Islamic faith surrounded by fire that everyone must cross on Judgement Day — that captured three decades of sufferings and showed how it would be easier to cross the bridge on the judgement day than passing an identification parade in front of security informers got much acclaim.But it wasn’t just in the literary world that Mukhtar had created ripples. A playwright, producer and an anchor, Mukhtar hosted TV programmes and wrote over 100 plays for television and radio. An ace broadcaster on the Doordarshan, Mukhtar had been an integral part of Doordarshan Kashmir’s flagship show ‘Good Morning Kashmir’ for many years.In the early 1990s, he briefly dabbled in journalism, running a weekly newspaper ‘Al-Mukhtar’. Kashmir’s growing militancy and volatile political climate, however, meant that the newspaper had to be shut down. Despite this, however, the journalist in him never died, and he eventually worked as an editor of a literary magazine ‘Lafz ba lafz’ (Word by Word).His writings won several awards — including the ‘Safeer-e-Urdu’ award by the Aligarh Muslim University and J&K Urdu Academy award. His absence leaves a voice in the Kashmiri literary circles.Story continues below this ad“He was a person with a special kind of creative ability and a great human being,” said Mohammad Amin Bhat, president of Adbi Markaz Kamraz — the oldest and the largest cultural and literary organisation of Jammu and Kashmir. “He was a rebel from an early age. In the 1970s, he left a government job to work as a freelancer. He had a lot of self-confidence and had been active in the literary field for 50 years.”Bashaarat Masood is a Special Correspondent with The Indian Express. He has been covering Jammu and Kashmir, especially the conflict-ridden Kashmir valley, for two decades. Bashaarat joined The Indian Express after completing his Masters in Mass Communication and Journalism from the University in Kashmir. He has been writing on politics, conflict and development. Bashaarat was awarded with the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards in 2012 for his stories on the Pathribal fake encounter. ... Read MoreStay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd