Masked gunmen slit man’s throat

■ Protests in Hajin as man killed in front of wife, minor son

Hundreds of people including women and children on Saturday marched along the streets of Hajin, a township in Jammu and Kashmir’s northern district of Bandipore, to protest against the brutal killing of a resident by suspected militants on Thursday night.

The township and its neighbourhood also observed a spontaneous shutdown against the murder of 38- year- old Yaqoob Ahmed Wagay, a butcher by profession.

According to the family of the slain civilian, five gunmen barged into their house in Gund Prang village of Hajin on Thursday night and murdered Wagay by slitting his throat. It said that two of the masked gunmen worked knives on his throat while the other three gagged his wife and seven- year old son after violently waking them up.

Shufeena Begum, the wife of Wagay, said that two of the assailants got hold of Yaqoob and started to slit his throat with knives, without saying a word to him. “He ( Wagay) struggled but in vain. The other masked men caught hold of me and my minor son and forced us to see my husband’s throat being slit,” she said.

She alleged that the even after being informed about the gruesome murder, the police did not turn up and instead sent an ambulance to take her husband’s corpse for autopsy at a local hospital.

Hajin has in the past few weeks witnessed the murder of half a dozen people after they were kidnapped by gunmen from their respective residences. The police had blamed the gory incidents on Lashkar- e- Tayyaba ( LeT) which has, however, denied the charge.

In an audio clip released through social media on Friday evening, the outfit denies its involvement in Wagay’s murder and says that it was the “handiwork of Indian intelligence agencies in order to defame the freedom struggle and create rift between the mujahideen and public”.

◗ The township and its neighbourhood also observed a spontaneous shutdown against the murder of 38- yearold Yaqoob Ahmed Wagay, a butcher by profession