Hizb: Will pour acid in the eyes of candidates

You saw how many youth lost eyesight

(to pellets). That is why we have planned (that) whosoever fights polls, he will be dragged out of his home and acid will be poured into his eyes...

RIYAZ NAIKOO, Hizbul Mujahideen’s operational commander

SRINAGAR : Kashmir’s indigenous militant outfit Hizbul Mujahideen has threatened to pour acid into the eyes of those who choose to contest the upcoming Jammu and Kashmir panchayat polls.

For the first time, the outfit has also publicly acknowledged its hand in the past killings of election contestants while also blaming security agencies for a few deaths. In Kashmir’s parlance, such killings of panches and sarpanches were attributed to ‘unknown gunmen’.

The Panchayat polls, which could not be held in 2016 following violence after the death of Hizbul commander Burhan Wani, are scheduled to take place from February 15.

The threat has apparently come from Hizbul’s operational commander Riyaz Naikoo, a resident of south Kashmir’s Awantipora, in an audio conversation leaked in the form of a video on social media.

Deputy inspector general of police in south Kashmir SP Pani refused to comment, saying he has heard about the clip but not seen it yet.

In the conversation, apparently between Naikoo and someone called Sameer Tiger, the former says that there won’t be any killings or threats during Panchayat elections this time.

“For the past 28 years we have been threatening those (participating in elections) but nothing happened. And you saw in last elections how many were killed: some were killed by (Indian) agencies and some by us but what was the result. They were benefitted (alluding to their families who got compensation),”naikoo says.

Last time, the panchayat elections were held in 2011 with a record turnout of 80%.

The 30-year-old post graduate militant commander claims that the families of these panches and sarpanches push them into elections knowing “they have lost their utilities at their homes”. “They know that when they will be killed, the kin get ₹5 lakh and an SRO case (for getting a job),” he says.

Naikoo, one of the longest-surviving militants in Hizbul Mujahideen who had joined group almost along with Burhan Wani, says that this time there will be no killings. “You saw in 2016 how many youth lost their eyesight (to pellets). That is why we have planned (that) whosoever fights elections, he will be dragged out his home and acid will be poured into his eyes so that he too loses his eyesight, so that he too becomes a burden for his family for the rest of his life,” the militant says.