The mausoleum of 20th century Kashmiri poet and Sufi saint Suchh Kral was destroyed in a fire in south Kashmir Friday.

The police said the fire broke out in the morning at the old timber structure over the poet's grave in Inder village of Pulwama district, 45 km north of Srinagar.

'Before fire tenders could control the blaze, the wooden structure was completely gutted,' a police officer said here.

Commenting on the loss of the poet's mausoleum, well-known poet and intellectual Farooq Nazki told IANS here: 'Sufism has always been the medium of instruction in Kashmiri language. People were unlettered and Sufis like Suchh Kral and later on Shamas Fakir made their poetic Sufi experience the medium of instruction.'

'Even today when you go to the countryside during harvest or in the sowing season, people sing (the poems of) Suchh Kral as they understand his terminology very well,' he added.