Junaid Jamshed: Pop star turned preacher

Image copyright AFP

Junaid Jamshed was one of the pioneers of Pakistan's pop scene that took off after the 1988 death of the country's conservative military dictator, Gen Ziaul Haq. Junaid Jamshed, who at one time rivaled Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt in popularity in his country, was one of at least 43 people who died when a Pakistan International Airlines flight crashed on its way from Chitral to Islamabad. The airline said the ATR-42 aircraft was carrying 48 people -- 42 passengers, five crew members and one ground engineer -- when it lost contact with a control tower on its way from Chitral to Islamabad. ROCK STAR AND ROYALTY

Much of the public’s anguish focused on Junaid Jamshed, the vocalist of Vital Signs, one of Pakistan’s first and most successful bands of the 1990s, who abandoned his music career in 2001 to become a travelling evangelist with the conservative Tableeghi Jamaat group.
A Pakistan International Airlines aircraft carrying at least 48 people, including former singer Junaid Jamshed, crashes shortly after taking off from Chitral, Pakistan.