I did it to save people’s lives, says Major Gogoi

More than one and a half months after the video of Farooq Dar, the man tied to an army jeep being used as human shield went viral, the officer in question, Major Leetul Gogoi, spoke to the media trying to explain the circumstances in which he took the decision.

“We got a distress call from Gutligam polling station saying around 1,200 had surrounded the booth. When we reached, we saw a large crowd throwing stones from their roof tops,” he said.

Gogoi said he saw a man at a 30ft distance from his vehicle and asked his men to catch hold of him. “When we challenged him, he tried to flee. After we managed to catch him, we found out that he (Dar) was the instigator,” he said.

Gogoi, however, did not specifically say that he saw Dar pelting stones. “We kept pleading with the crowd for a safe passage on a mega phone, but they wouldn’t listen to us. So, I thought of tying Dar to the jeep. And stone pelting stopped for a while. In those few moments we got, we moved out of the area,” he added.

“We managed to save 12 people, four civil polling staff, seven ITBP personnel and one police man were taken out,” Gogoi said.

“I did it to save people,” he said. However, Gogoi left the interaction without taking any questions. The media interaction was also limited to a select few as the local press and most of the print media, including HT, were kept out.