The human shield incident: Claims And counter-claims
Major Leetul Gogoi’s act of tying a Kashmiri man to a jeep as a ‘human shield’ on April 9 in the face of what he claimed was heavy stone-pelting by a mob stirred a controversy. Farooq Dar, the man used as the shield, has accused Gogoi of lying. Eyewitness accounts of events of that day when polling for Srinagar parliamentary byelection was underway also differ. HT looks at some of the divergent claims:
SITUATION IN UTLIGAM FROM WHERE DAR WAS PICKED UP AND TIED TO THE JEEP
GOGOI: Claims he was responding to a distress call from a polling station with besieged officials and security personnel. “When we reached the area, we saw a large crowd, including women and children; they were throwing stones, some people were even throwing boulders at us from their rooftops,” he said.
DAR: Says situation was relatively calm when he was caught while passing by VILLAGERS: Reported intermittent stone pelting but deny the presence of a large crowd
NUMBER OF PROTESTERS
GOGOI: Says 1,200 people were protesting at Utligam, forcing them to use a human shield DAR: Says he only saw a few people protesting when he was seized VILLAGERS: The village has a population of around 900. Villagers also say the spot from where Dar was seized cannot accommodate 1,200 people
DID TYING DAR TO A JEEP HELP SAVE LIVES?
GOGOI: Says he saved the lives of 12 people, including four polling officials and seven Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) personnel. Says tying Dar to the jeep created a “window to move out of the area safely”.
DAR: Says he was innocent. He, in fact, had already voted at polling booth number 90 (his serial number on the voting roll was 612).
VILLAGERS: Say Dar was beaten up before being tied to the jeep. “After tying him up, they dared us to pelt stones at them,” a woman said.
WAS DAR AN INSTIGATOR?
GOGOI: Says Dar was an “instigator and could have been a ring leader” of stone-pelters. He, however, did not say if he saw Dar pelting stones
DAR: Says the Major “is lying to save himself”. “Please check my name in the list of voters. If I voted for democracy, why would I stop others from voting and pelt stones,” he says.
VILLAGERS: Say they asked Dar to flee but he refused to since he believed that no harm would be done to him as he had just voted DRIVING THROUGH 17 VILLAGES IN THE REGION FOR ABOUT 5 HOURS WITH THE HUMAN SHIELD TIED TO THE JEEP IN FRONT GOGOI: Has been silent on this DAR: Insists he was tied up at around 11 in the morning and taken off the jeep only around 4pm VILLAGERS: Eyewitnesses say that they saw the jeep being driven around the villages.