Two civilians, two militants killed in J&K gunfight

Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir’s southern Pulwama, a hotbed of separatist violence, erupted again on Thursday after a 15-year-old boy and another civilian was killed and two more civilians were injured in clashes with the police near the site of a gunfight between holed up militants and security forces.

Both Lashkar-e-Tayyaba militants were killed in the gunbattle. The militant duo, Muhammad Shafi Wagay alias Ehsan and Jahangir Ahmed Ganie alias Saffiullah, officials said, were “dreaded terrorists” involved in many incidents of violence, including “killing of security force and local police personnel and political activists, carrying out grenade attacks on security forces and police installations in south Kashmir”.

“They were also involved in issuing threats to general masses, asking them to refrain from participating in the forthcoming Lok Sabha by-election for Anantnag constituency and local body polls. They were also motivating youth to join militant ranks in the general areas of Awantipora, Pulwama and Shopian,” said a police spokesperson in Srinagar. He added that the duo also had a hand in the recent bank robberies and weapon-snatching incidents in south and central Kashmir.

However, these officials are concerned that their “feat” has been overshadowed by the killing of Aamir Nazir, a Class 9 student from Pulwama’s Begum Bagh village, although they insist that he, and two other civilians, were hit by stray bullets during the encounter.

Another civilian, identified as Jalaluddin, was brought dead to a Pulwama hospital later in the day. Doctors said his body had no external injury and that he died apparently because of “blunt trauma in chest”. Locals claimed that he collapsed after the security forces used chilly-filled PAVA shells against the ptotesters in the area.

Disputing the official line, locals alleged that 15-year-old Aamir was hit by a bullet when the security forces acted against surging crowds, which made repeated attempts to relocate to the encounter site, chanting pro-freedom slogans and hurling rocks at security personnel when they were trying to neutralise the holed up militants.

The doctors at a medical facility in neighbouring Kakapora said that the boy was declared dead on arrival. His father Nazir Ahmed Wani was quoted by local news agencies as saying that Aamir left home for school in the morning.

“He was carrying his school bag with him. They have snatched him from me, and they will have to answer before God for murdering my sweetheart,” he said.

One of the two civilian protesters wounded in the firing got a bullet in his leg, but their condition in a Srinagar hospital is stated to be “stable”.

The killing of the schoolboy triggered more protests in various parts of Pulwama, leaving scores injured. Many of the protesters sustained bullet and pellet wounds, the hospital sources said.

In February, Army Chief General Bipin Rawat had said that the security forces were suffering higher casualties during counterinsurgency operations in Kashmir because the local population was helping militants by hindering these operations.

He had warned the people of the Valley that they would be dealt with as “anti-nationals” and face “harsh” action unless they desist from creating hurdles during encounters with militants.

His statement, however, evoked sharp criticism by local political parties, and many said that they see the warning as an “open threat” to the people of Kashmir.

Kashmir’s chief Muslim cleric, and leader of an alliance of separatist parties, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq tweeted that Gen. Rawat’s threat has only been put into practice in Pulwama on Thursday.

However, this is not the first time that civilians were killed or injured in such an incident. On February 14, 2016, two local young residents, Shaista Hameed and Danish Farooq, were killed in security forces firing on protesters at Pulwama’s Kakapora village, close to the site of an encounter between a group of holed up militants and security forces.

Following the incident, Kashmir Governor NN Vohra had asked the law enforcing authorities to ensure civilians don’t relocate to encounter sites in future. Subsequently, the Valley’s  DCs imposed prohibitory orders under Section 144 CrPC, banning assembly of five or more people close to encounter sites in their respective districts. They renewed their orders last month for a period of three months and also said that no civilian gathering would be allowed within 3-km radius of an encounter site. But people have ignored this and also repeated appeals and even warnings including the one from the Army Chief have also failed in stopping them from making conscious attempts to help the militants to break security dragnet during cordon-and-search operations.

Meanwhile, train services were suspended from Banihal across the Pirpanjal Range in Jammu region and Srinagar as a precautionary measure in view of the encounter in Pulwama.