He didn’t miss a class: Teen attacker’s family in disbelief
TRAL: An uneasy calm enveloped the house of slain Kashmiri militant Fardeen Ahmad in Tral on the fourth day of mourning since his death. Fardeen (16) led the suicide attack on a CRPF camp in South Kashmir’s Lethpora on Sunday, killing five jawans.
At what used to be Fardeen’s study, mother Wazira was sitting with her slain son’s twin brother Faizan. Both the mother and the son could not point to any specific incident or a trigger that could have led the studios teenager becoming a suicide attacker.
“I used to be with him all throughout the day but there was no indication what so ever about his inclination towards militancy,” said Faizan, who appeared class 10 exams, a month after his brother left home. Both were studying in the same class in an English medium school in Tral.
“He did not miss a single class, his attendance was 100 percent till the day he disappeared,’’ Wazira added. The distraught mother said “he used to be among the class toppers’’.
The mother, however, said Fardeen was an introvert – who did not share with his brother or friends what was going on in his mind.
According to the family, Wani’s killing, which triggered unrest in the state in 2016, killing over 100, did not affect Fardeen.
His relatives said, Fardeen showed no resistance against the state and was in fact, quite close to his father who serves as a head constable in the state police.
Family members denied any knowledge of him being influenced by social media or any person. Wazira, however, said a slain Hizb militant Auqib Maulvi, who was killed in March last year had been his “Quran tutor’’ before the latter joined Burhan Wani.
Both Burhan and Auqib appeared in several photos and videos that had been widely circulated on social media. Auqib, Fardeen’s neighbour in Hyuna village had joined militancy sometime in 2013. Auqib had memorised the Quran and was teaching children of the locality.
Insisting that Fardeen showed no “inclinations” towards militancy, Wazira said, “He had understood the religion well. He would talk about Jahanum and Jannat and used to say that worldly life is nothing.”
The only time Wazira said she saw the teenager showing any emotion was at the plight of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmmar . “He used to say that children are being snatched from their mothers’ laps and burnt,’’ she recalled.
They however insisted he had never even discussed Babri Masjid demolition or parliament attack convict Afzal Guru’s hanging-- the events mentioned in the now infamous video Fardeen had shot before leading the attack on the CRPF camp in Lethpora.
Fardeen had gone missing on September 15, 2016 and nearly a month later, a picture of the missing teenager appeared on social media posing with an AK-47 rifle with ‘Jaish-e-mohammad’ inscribed on the corner of the picture.