Saran Singh Motizada, a prominent physician and a longstanding figure in Afghanistan’s medical community, passed away in London Saturday, according to sources.
Motizada served as a professor at Nangarhar Medical Faculty and as the chief physician at Nangarhar Regional Hospital during his career. He was widely recognized as the last Sikh doctor of Afghanistan, having been trained and worked within the country’s educational and healthcare systems.
Before Motizada, Balmakand Das, another distinguished Sikh doctor from Afghanistan and one of the first graduates of Kabul Medical College, also served as a professor and was considered one of the founders of modern medicine in the country.
Another colleague from the same generation, Bhagat Singh Hakimzada, served alongside Motizada during a mandatory military service stint in 1972.
The death of Saran Singh Motizada, one of the last representatives of the Sikh community in Afghanistan’s medical field, marks the end of an era in the nation’s medical history, according to an Afghan physician.
