The Jammu and Kashmir Police lodged the FIR against seven persons, including the father of a teenager who was killed along in an “encounter” in Srinagar on December 30 and buried at a faraway locality.
Sanjhi Soch buero :The Jammu and Kashmir Police has slapped an FIR against seven persons, including the father of a teenager who was killed along with two other men in an “encounter” in Srinagar on December 30 and buried at a faraway locality. The FIR has been filed against an “unlawful assembly” in Pulwama.
“Yes. It is against an unlawful assembly at Bellow on February 5, 2021. It is against a mob,” a police officer told News18
The FIR has named Mushtaq Ahmad Wani, Athar’s father, and six others under stringent laws for “organising protests with a criminal intention”. The FIR has been registered under sections 147 (rioting), 341 (wrongfully restraining a person/persons), 153 (inciting violence or riot through provocation), and Section 13 of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) at Rajpora police station in Pulwama.
Another officer said the Rajpora police station had received information on Friday “through some sources that after offering Friday prayers at a local mosque Jamia, a violent mob appeared near the mosque and raised anti-national slogans and blocked the road”.
“The mob was led by the seven people who were trying to incite people,” the officer said.
Former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti hit out at the administration over the arrest. “After losing his son in an alleged fake encounter, Athar Mushtaq’s father has been slapped with an FIR for demanding his dead body. His crime was to stage a peaceful protest. The inhabitants of Naya Kashmir can’t even question a callous admin and have been reduced to living corpses,” she wrote.
Wani, however, told News18 that police have not yet informed him about the FIR, but was told by some locals that a case has been slapped against him. He said after Friday prayers, they took out a protest demanding that Athar’s body be handed over to the family.
“On the same day, a local cleric was arrested. When some village elders went to inquire at police station, they were told it was some other case,” he said. But they did also inform that an FIR has been registered against seven others.
Wani has been holding protests regularly asking the administration to exhume his son’s body from Sonamarg so that he could bury the same at his native village. He has, in fact, dug a grave and kept it ready at his native graveyard.
Athar, a Class 11 student and two others from neighbouring villages were killed on December 30, 2020, in an alleged gunfight on the outskirts of Srinagar in Lawaypora. Their families had protested and contested the police claim that they were militants and even blamed security forces for staging an encounter.Family members had told News18 in earlier interviews that their sons were taken to Srinagar’s Lawaypora locality and then killed in a fake’ encounter. Police, on the other hand, have maintained they have proof that the trio were linked to militancy. Soon after their killing, police had termed the trio as “militant associates” or over-ground workers.According to a new directive which has been in vogue since early last year, police personnel bury bodies of militants in faraway localities of Sonamarg or Baramulla. This is being done to discourage big funeral rallies of the militants.
