Don’t chat with armymen: Hizb to Kashmiri women

Hizbul Mujahideen’s operational commander has asked Kashmiri women to avoid chatting with army personnel and strangers on social media, a week after an incident involving army major Leetul Gogoi, another armyman, and a woman who were detained by the local police following an altercation at a hotel where the woman said she had come to meet Gogoi.

In an audio statement released on Wednesday, Riyaz Naikoo also asked young men to post their experiences on social media if the army “pushes them” to provide information about militants.

“We have information that army and policemen are developing relationships with women, particularly schoolgirls, to prompt them into providing information about militants. Armymen are developing contacts with these girls to get them (into) do(ing) wrong things (sic),” Naikoo said in the 10-minute audio which has gone viral.

Naikoo, 30, a postgraduate, said. “We appeal (to) our sisters to remain away from army and policemen and avoid chatting with strangers on social media. Nor you should share your secrets with strangers. It will be used to blackmail you,” he said.

Last week, a young woman from Budgam in central Kashmir was detained with an army major and another personnel of the force at a hotel in Srinagar where the major (Gogoi) had booked a room. The woman later told the police that she was not a minor, and had come in contact with the officer on Facebook.

Gogoi was in news last year for tying up a Kashmiri civilian to the bonnet of his jeep and use him as a “human shield” to prevent stone-pelters from allegedly targeting his convoy.

Naikoo said he was against the parents and teachers sending their wards to army-sponsored educational tours. “I am at a loss to understand how parents allow their daughters to go on tours with army officers like major Gogoi. Army and education are two separate departments and not connected to each other even remotely. Army tours are a conspiracy so that they can reach our sisters. Then they lure them to do wrong things and then blackmail them to work as informers for army,” Naikoo alleged.

“We will not spare those parents and teachers who allow their children to go on tours which are directly or indirectly connected to army,” he said.

Hizb is the biggest indigenous militant organisation in Jammu and Kahsmir.

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