#KashmirUnrest: Three families and a tale of death

A few paces from the historic Jama Masjid in south Kashmir’s Bijbehara town, on the banks of Jhelum river, stands a cluster of houses crisscrossed by narrow back alleys.

Using these to avoid confrontation with security forces who were enforcing a curfew, mourners trickled in to the house of Nazir Ahmad Lattoo.
Fifty-five-year-old Lattoo’s son, Aamir Nazir, a post-graduate student of Commerce in Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), died in the wee hours of Tuesday, at a Srinagar hospital after getting shot at on Monday just outside his home, allegedly by the police.

A tent was erected on the banks of Jhelum, just outside the Lattoo house. Solemn women gathered around Aamir’s mother, Ayesha, and extended their condolences, not by speaking but by sitting with her in mourning, in solidarity.

Men visited Nazir and restless young boys sat outside, exchanging whatever news they’d been getting from other parts of the Valley in the wake of a communication blackout imposed by the authorities.
Aamir is one of the 44 civilians who were killed in firing by security forces since July 9, the day after militant outfit Hizb-ul-Mujahideen commander Burhan Muzaffar Wani was killed in an encounter with security forces in Bumdoora village, Kokernag, in south Kashmir’s Anantnag district.

More than 2,000 (1,200 as per the Union Home Ministry) people have been injured and over 100 will, according to doctors, be permanently blinded.

Wani became the poster boy of Kashmir’s renewed militancy largely through his presence in social media, where he appeared in pictures and videos wearing combat fatigues, often appealing to the young to join his fight against security forces in Kashmir.

His popularity was somehow underestimated by the authorities. The backlash to his killing has been unprecedented, with more than 2 lakh people attending his funeral in Tral town of Pulwama district, despite a curfew in place. Tens of thousands hit the streets to mourn, and protest.

“Amir was at home Tuesday afternoon,” said Syed Hussain Lattoo, Amir’s paternal uncle and a J&K Revenue Department employee. “We were watching NDTV together, in the hope that it will run news regarding the unrest in Kashmir, which was not to be.”

Hussain said it was precisely then, when NDTV was running news about floods somewhere in India, that they heard a noise outside. Aamir ran upstairs to see what had happened.

“He came back and said he could not spot anything. We switched off the TV to go outside and see for ourselves,” said Hussain. Once outside, Hussain said, they could see the police arresting somebody on the other side of the Jhelum. “Some boys from this side jeered at the police and within seconds a volley of bullets was fired at us, injuring Aamir and another boy,” he said.

Contrary to the claim of family and eyewitnesses, late in the evening, the police issued a press note saying militants had fired upon the police and CRPF personnel deployed for law and order duties. Three persons were injured, the note said.

Aamir, according to the family, was denied first aid at the Sub-District Hospital in Bijbehara after the police raided the hospital and ransacked it. The family said doctors and paramedics were beaten up.

“We had to drive the ambulance by ourselves for the driver was injured after being beaten by the police,” Hussain said.

They claim they were also detained in Srinagar Police Control Room (PCR) for more than six hours after Aamir succumbed to his injuries and they left the hospital to travel back home.

Son of an embroiderer and reportedly shy, Aamir had worked hard to work his way to Zakir Hussain Post Graduate College of Delhi University from where he got a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce.

Eldest of three sons, Aamir was expected to bring the family out of its miseries. His father, Nazir, has been embroidering phirans (Kashmiri gowns) all his life to educate his children in the hope that someday, they will be able to stand for themselves and give the family a better life.

“Allah has his own plans while we make ours,” said Nazir. “But to raise a son and lose him like this is a death before death for parents.” “The only thing I want now is his blood should not go waste. He could not bring an end to our miseries, but may his blood bring Kashmiri people out of tyranny and occupation.”

Outside Nazir’s house, across the Jhelum, from where the bullets that felled Aamir came, a narrow mud path leads to a freshly macadamised road, now strewn with burnt tyres, stones, bricks. Barricades stand to attention.

The road, snaking through breathtakingly beautiful highlands, dotted with apple orchards, is called the Apple Valley locally and leads to Siligam village, in Aishmuqam area of Anantnag.

A diversion, to a bridge damaged in the 2014 floods, in Siligam leads to Thokerpora locality. In the middle of this sleepy village of approximately 150 househollds, inside a two-storey house, 28-year-old Aafia sat in a corner surrounded by a few women.

Aafia, who had delivered her second baby a month and a half ago, has not spoken a word since the Saturday her husband, 32-year-old Aijaz Ahmad Thoker, was killed by security forces. According to newspaper reports, Thoker was the first civilian casualty of the ongoing unrest.

A religious man, Thoker was part of a peaceful protest that had been taken out after the funeral prayers were held in Akkad village. “Being among the respectable of his village mosque, he tried to pacify youngsters who were trying to march towards an Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) contingent on duty for the ongoing Amarnath Yatra,” said Sahil Suhail, Thoker’s cousin and a local journalist.

Suhail said the ITBP personnel, seeing the men marching towards them, opened fire, injuring many. “My cousin, while trying to lift an injured man to his feet, was shot at, leaving him bundled at the spot, unable to move.”

By the time, Thoker was taken to a nearby hospital and then to Anantnag district hospital, he had already died, said Suhail.

Thoker is survived by an ailing 70-year-old mother, one unmarried and two married sisters, his wife and two young children (the elder son, a two year old). He used to make a living by supplying tents to Amarnath Yatra pilgrims in Pahalgam, but after his father died four years ago, he started to drive a load carrier. Thoker’s father, Ali Muhammad, was a coolie in the Roads and Buildings Department of the state and after his meager income was curtailed, the whole household had to depend on Thoker.

“He was our only breadwinner. God knows what is going to happen to us now,” said Maryam, his mother. She believes people should remain steadfast and the Kashmir issue should be resolved once and for all, now that blood has been drawn again.

“The blood of our children should not go in vain. If things get ‘normal’ again what are we going to achieve?” said a frail and diabetic Maryam. “Only dozens of families devastated. We should try and achieve freedom from this bloodbath India has orchestrated here.”

While the family wailed and lamented their son’s death, Aafia remained silet and 2-year-old Musaib (Thoker’s elder son) ran from one wailing woman to another, trying to explain that his father has gone for Hajj (the holy Muslim pilgrimage).

“Why are all of you crying and calling out Papa? He has told me he was going for the Hajj, he will be back soon,” little Musaib told them in his childish stammer, making the women wail even louder.

About 23 kilometers north of Thokerpora is Anantnag town. Go a few more kilometres, and you find Nandpora village, in Khannabal area.

When we went there, the village was in mourning — one of its budding entrepreneurs and a father-to-be, Mukhtar Ahmad Nanda, 32, had been killed on the evening of July 9 when CRPF personnel allegedly shot at him as he was walking back home after offering maghrib (evening) prayers at the neighborhood mosque. He was rushed to the nearby Anantnag district hospital where doctors declared him brought dead.

Some journalists, who had reached the village to cover his funeral, were chased away by the family and those assembled there. They branded the journalists as traitors to the cause.

Later, the family was still reluctant to talk to the media. Nanda had married six months ago and was expecting another child when he was killed. “He was the most hardworking guy I have ever met. Humble, down to earth, and hardworking,” a source close to the family said. “He had worked his way up from working as a salesman to owning a business.”

Nanda had, after working as a salesman, ventured into the leather good manufacturing business and was reportedly doing well for himself and his family. “He had a workplace and a shop in the Wanpoh area, some 4 kilometers from here, along the National Highway,” the source said. “He was a joyous father to be and what added to the joy was his two sisters were to get married a week from when he got killed.”

Nanda is survived by old parents, a brother and the two sisters. The family friend and our source lamented that while Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has been very vocal about her support for entrepreneurs in Kashmir, she had just got one of them killed.

“Is this the support she has been talking about extending towards Kashmiri entrepreneurs, killing them?” asked a family friend.

Nanda’s sisters’ marriage has been cancelled and the entire neighborhood continues to mourn like the rest of the Valley.

Wanpoh, where Nanda’s workshop and showroom are located, falls in Kulgam district, which has also witnessed violence and seen seven civilians killed. The Srinagar-Jammu national highway cuts across Wanpoh village and in the middle of the village, at a right turn, a stone gate carrying inscriptions welcomes one to Kulgam district. About eight kilometers from this gate, on both sides of a narrow, blacktop road, lies Tool-Nowpora village, where apple farming is the main source of income for the villagers.

Last Sunday, in this village 45-year-old Manzoor Ahmad Dar, a small time spice vendor who was battling a lung tumour, took his two sons, 15-year-old Irfan Ahmad and nine-year-old Faisal, to work in their small orchard, located near a newly-established police post.

“It was then that a bunch of boys being chased by the police entered our orchard and the police came barging in after them,” Manzoor said.

Both Manzoor and his sons were beaten black and blue by the police. Faisal and Manzoor were let off eventually, but the teenaged Irfan was picked up by the men in uniform and taken away.

“After beating him severely and then sensing he might not survive, the police dumped him at the gates of Kulgam district hospital, half-dead,” said the grieving father. The younger sibling, Faisal, remained at the Kulgam district hospital under treatment till Sunday while Irfan was shifted to SK Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) in Srinagar by the district hospital staff.

Irfan remained in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of SKIMS till the morning of July 15, when he succumbed to his injuries. Doctors at the hospital said Irfan had a broken skull, damaged blood vessels and a stagnant eye pupil. “He died in agony,” said one doctor. “We had to cut open his trachea (windpipe) and insert a tube to keep oxygen pumping into his lungs.”

Manzoor had been living in rented accommodation (rare for Kashmiris, particularly in rural areas) because he had been saving every penny for his children’s education. Now, with one son dead, another bedridden with injuries and Manzoor himself battling a lung tumour, the future looks bleak for him. When he tried to go to Srinagar to be with his son, Manzoor says he was beaten up by security forces.

There have been no police statements on separate killings, but in press notes, authorities have either maintained that the people killed have died in militant firing or that they were part of a “mob” attacking security forces.

Kashmir has now approximately 45 such stories, but to reach out to every one of them is impossible in the face of physical and virtual restrictions enforced by the authorities. Mobile services have been suspended, mobile internet snapped, and now reports are coming that even landline phone services have been blocked at many places across Kashmir.

In such a scenario, it will be a long wait before every death and the stories associated with each one of them is documented.

The author can be contacted on Twitter @Suhail_Shah13