Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leader Mehbooba Mufti has asked chief minister Nitish Kumar to preserve in Nalanda, his home district, the tomb of Kashmir’s last indigenous king Yousuf Shah Chak, who died in Bihar after Mughal emperor Akbar exiled him after invading his kingdom in the 16th century.

She expressed concern over its poor condition and said the last resting place of Chak symbolises the ties between Kashmir and Bihar. “But unfortunately, the site is in absolute disrepair and ruins,” said Mufti, the last chief minister of J&K before the region was stripped of its statehood in 2019.

Mufti, who is in Patna for the meeting of non-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) parties on Friday as part of efforts to unite them ahead of the 2024 national polls, visited Nalanda to pay her respects to Chak.

The Mughals annexed Kashmir in 1586 after unsuccessful attempts to do so over the previous six decades of the establishment of the Mughal Empire under Emperor Babur in 1528. Chak remains part of Kashmir’s collective memory not just as its last indigenous king but also through the poetry of his queen Habba Khatun, who is one of the region’s greatest cultural icons. He is believed to have fallen in love at first sight with her while he was on a hunting trip and heard Khatun singing under a Chinar tree as she was wandering after walking out of an unhappy marriage. Born Zoon, she was renamed Habba Khatun as she became Chak’s queen. The Mughals soon invaded Kashmir and exiled Chak.