2nd kidnapping sees youth beheaded: J& K
Gunmen beheaded a Kashmiri youth after kidnapping him and his father from their home in Hajin area of Jammu and Kashmir’s north- western district of Baramulla.
The police said that the headless body of the victim Manzoor Ahmed Butt was found lying in an apple orchard, a few kilometres away from his home in Hajin’s Bonkhan Mohalla, on Friday morning.
25- year- old Butt and his father were kidnapped by a group of suspected militants after barging into their house in Hajin during the intervening night of April 4 and 5.
The police said that slain youth’s father Abdul Gaffar succeeded in escaping from captivity on Wednesday night itself in spite of being shot in belly and attacked with knives. But the gunmen took his son with him and subsequently murdered him.
The gory incident comes two days after unidentified gunmen shot dead another resident of Hajin after kidnapping him from his in- laws house in the town, 35- km from here.
The police have blamed both incidents on Lashkar- e- Taiba ( LeT), designated as a terrorist group by India and the United States. The outfit has not reacted to the charge, so far.
A report from Hajin said that headless body of Butt was found in the orchard by local residents. “They informed the police which relocated to the place and took up investigations. On completion of required formalities, the body was handed over to the family for performing last rites,” a police spokesman said.
The police said a local LeT’s cadre is behind the killing of Butt after his kidnapping. “Local LeT terrorist Muhammad Saleem Parray is believed to have played a major role in the killing of the youth,” it said in a statement here.
The police also said that the gunmen had after barging into Butt’s home beaten up the inmates before dragging the father- son duo and taking them along.
Earlier on Tuesday, another resident Muntazir Ahmad Parray was kidnapped by gunmen from the house of his father- in- law Farooq Ahmed Parray at Hajan. His bullet- riddled corpse was found on the outskirts of the township next day. Pakistan Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi Friday sought help of the international community in sending fact finding missions to Kashmir to investigate the “gross human rights violations by the Indian forces.”
In a message on the ‘ Kashmir Solidarity Day’ – observed on Friday — the Prime Minister urged the world powers to raise their voice for human rights in Kashmir.
Mr Abbasi said it was high time that India was asked to provide access to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights ( OHCHR) and the Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission ( IPHRC) Fact Finding Missions to Kashmir.
The Prime Minister claimed that for the past seven decades, the people of Kashmir had waged an “unprecedented struggle against Indian repression.”
“The recent spate of Indian aggression carried out against the Kashmiri civilians, killing 20 Kashmiri youth and injuring over 200 protestors, was yet another testament to atrocities being carried out by the Indian forces in Kashmir,” he said.
Mr Abbasi said India continued to deny the valiant people of Kashmir the just right to self- determination enshrined in the UN Security Council resolutions.
He said the Kashmir dispute was the unfinished agenda of partition of the Indo- Pak subcontinent and remains one of the oldest disputes on the agenda of the UN Security Council.
“Pakistan strongly condemns the systematic state terrorism and killings of the people of Kashmir by Indian forces. The basic human rights of the innocent people of Kashmir, including the right to life and peaceful assembly have been grossly violated by Indian forces,” he contended.
He was also critical of the arrest and placing under house detention of the senior Hurriyat leadership.
He said the people of Pakistan and the international community had utmost respect for the people of Kashmir for their “unparalleled courage, bravery and persistence in facing the worst kind of State terrorism, human rights abuses, violence and suppression by the Indian state apparatus.”