Afghan and foreign dignitaries paid their respect to the country's last monarch Mohammad Zahir Shah, who died here after a prolonged illness.
KABUL: Afghan and foreign dignitaries on Tuesday paid their respect to the country's last monarch Mohammad Zahir Shah, who died here after a prolonged illness at the age of 92.
The late King's body was brought out of his residential precincts in his ancestral palace in midtown Kabul late in the afternoon to lie in state for assembled dignitaries and members of the diplomatic corps to pay their homage.
Funeral arrangements appeared somber, as a military escort led by army chief General Bismillah Khan brought out the casket containing the body for public viewing.
Members of the late king's family stood huddled together in a block as dignitaries filed past the body, which is to be taken to the historical Eidgah mosque in the old city district for religious ceremonies before being lowered into the ground at the royal family's hill-top burial spot of Tapa-e-Maranjan.
Union Water Resources Minister Saifuddin Soz, leading a four-member delegation, represented India at the ceremony, which was attended by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and US Ambassador William Wood, among others.
Soz told that he would be delivering a personal message from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to President Karzai to convey India's sincere grief at the passing away of Afghanistan's "Baba-e-Millat" or Father of the Nation.
In a press statement, Soz said the late king was held in the highest esteem in India and that India cared greatly for his health.
It is the Indian Medical Mission in Afghanistan that had been assigned the task of keeping a round-the-clock watch on the health of the late king, who had been ailing for a long time before he breathed his laston Monday morning.
The deputy chairman of the Rajya Sabha, K H Rahman Khan, senior External Affairs Ministry official T C A Raghavan and ambassador Rakesh Sood made up the rest of the Indian delegation.
Foreign Ministers of the UK, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, Deputy Foreign Ministers of Italy and Canada and lawmakers from Japan also attended the ceremony.
A message was read from US President George W Bush, who described Shah as "a monumental figure in Afghan history" who "supported the goal of a representative and freely elected government in his homeland."
Security was tight in the capital city of the insurgency-hit country, with police and troops keeping a vigil on key roads around the presidential compound and to the main mosque. Flags were at half-mast across the country after Karzai declared three days of mourning for the late king and two days of holidays for his funeral and prayer ceremonies.
Shah is credited with 40 years of relatively peaceful rule until his exile in 1973 which ended after the fall ofTaliban. He returned to the war-torn country in 2002 to see it move towards democracy.
Shah was given the title of "Baba-e-Millat" in the country's Constitution passed in January 2004, about two years after the collapse of Taliban rule.
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