Veteran Congress leader and former minister Mohammad Sharief Niaz passed away on Monday. He was 75. Party sources said that Niaz breathed his last after a brief illness in Jammu and his last rites will be performed at his native village. Born on April 24, 1944 in village Changa of Bhalessa in Doda district, Niaz was first time elected as MLA in 1987. Being a legal luminary, he was entrusted the responsibility of being the Law Minister of the J&K State (now UT) in 1989. He joined the Congress party in 1976, worked as a trade union leader. He was nominated District President of the Congress Committee, Doda, in 1979. He unsuccessfully contested the 1983 Assembly elections on a Congress ticket from Inderwal constituency, but was finally elected in 1987. From 1992 to 1996, he remained a member of USERS consultative committee in the Northern Railway, and was elected to the assembly in 2002. He was inducted as Minister for Power in Mufti-led Congress-PDP coalition. In 2007, Niaz was elected as a Member of Legislative Council (MLC) for Doda. Congress leaders, Ghulam Nabi Azad, G M Saroori, Ravinder Sharma, Vikar Rasool Wani, Abdul Majid Wani, Ashok Kumar, Sham Lal Bhagat, Naresh Kumar Gupta, Aslam Goni, Raj Kumar Badyal and others have condoled the demise of veteran leader.
