“Indira was always a very able woman, a very courageous woman,” he told Kavita Chhibber in an interview in Kashmir when he was quite old. “I have seen her growing up before my eyes and I don’t think anyone can judge her better than I can. I wonder if the people around were equally efficient.”
Badshah Khan died in Peshawar and was buried in Jalalabad. Visa requirements were waived on the day of his funeral and a one-day ceasefire was declared in the Soviet-Afghan war, so thousands of people could freely cross the border from Peshwar to attend the procession. Several national leaders, including the Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi, attended, implicitly attributing to him the status of a head of state.