2 civilians, 2 militants killed in J&K gunfight
Death of a 15-year-old schoolboy in Pulwama, hotbed of separatist violence, sparks protests; many hurt
Jammu and Kashmir’s southern Pulwama, a hotbed of separatist violence, erupted again on Thursday after a 15-yearold boy and another civilian was killed and two more civilians were injured in clashes with the police near the site of a gunfight between holed up militants and security forces.
Both Lashkar-e-Tayyaba militants were killed in the gunbattle. The militant duo, Muhammad Shafi Wagay alias Ehsan and Jahangir Ahmed Ganie alias Saffiullah, officials said, were “dreaded terrorists” involved in many incidents of violence, including “killing of security force and local police personnel and political activists, carrying out grenade attacks on security forces and police installations in south Kashmir”.
“They were also involved in issuing threats to general masses, asking them to refrain from participating in the forthcoming Lok Sabha by-election for Anantnag constituency and local body polls. They were also motivating youth to join militant ranks in the general areas of Awantipora, Pulwama and Shopian,” said a police spokesperson in Srinagar. He added that the duo also had a hand in the recent bank robberies and weapon-snatching incidents in south and central Kashmir.
However, these officials are concerned that their “feat” has been overshadowed by the killing of Aamir Nazir, a Class 9 student from Pulwama’s Begum Bagh village, although they insist that he, and two other civilians, were hit by stray bullets during the encounter. no external injury and that he died apparently because of “blunt trauma in chest”. Locals claimed that he collapsed after the security forces used chilly-filled PAVA shells against the ptotesters in the area.
Disputing the official line, locals alleged that 15year-old Aamir was hit by a bullet when the security forces acted against surging crowds, which made repeated attempts to relocate to the encounter site, chanting pro-freedom slogans and hurling rocks at security personnel when they were trying to neutralise the holed up militants.
The doctors at a medical facility in neighbouring Kakapora said that the boy was declared dead on arrival.
His father Nazir Ahmed Wani was quoted by local news agencies as saying that Aamir left home for school in the morning.
“He was carrying his school bag with him. They have snatched him from me, and they will have to answer before God for murdering my sweetheart,” he said.
One of the two civilian protesters wounded in the firing got a bullet in his leg, but their condition in a Srinagar hospital is stated to be “stable”.
The killing of the schoolboy triggered more protests in various parts of Pulwama, leaving scores injured.
Many of the protesters sustained bullet and pellet wounds, the hospital sources said.