June 14. It was Sunday morning and Mehraj-ud-din Dar was expecting good business at his poultry shop, barely 500 metres from one of Sopore’s massive Army installations. Within minutes of his arrival at the shop, the 38-year-old Dar, a former JKLF militant, was gunned down by unidentified men. Father of two girls, Dar was the fifth of six residents to die in less than a month in this restive town in north Kashmir.

“Mehraj shunned militancy some 15 years ago, and was living in peace with his family. This is how innocents are being slaughtered here,” said Bashir Ahmad, Dar’s neighbour.

Known to harbour pro-freedom and anti-India sentiments, Sopore has been a hotbed of militancy since 1990. Police reports say that almost every militant organisation has members from this town. Sopore is also the town that thrice elected Syed Ali Shah Geelani, the most controversial separatist leader in the Valley, as its MLA. Sopore has never been away from the headlines for too long thanks to many incidents of violence and unrest. The recent attacks came within days of Lashkar-e-Islam — a hitherto unknown ‘militant’ outfit — publicly warning telecom companies to wind up operations in Sopore. ‘Close down the towers or face action’, its posters said. The motive was to disrupt normal life in the Valley.

On May 25, the killing orgy began with the gunning down of Rafiq Ahmad Haji. The 23-year-old commerce graduate was employed with a BSNL franchise owner in Kupwara. Gunmen stormed the outlet and sprayed bullets, killing Haji and injuring two others. Haji’s dreams of pursuing higher studies in Indore died with him.

The next casualty was 60-year-old Ghulam Hassan Dar, from neighbouring Duroo, who had recently leased his land to a telecom company. On May 26, militants stormed his house as the family was getting ready for bed and pumped at least a dozen bullets into Ghulam.

This killing was followed by a series of attacks on mobile towers. Attacks were also reported from Srinagar and Anantnag. Sensing more trouble, the central government despatched a team of senior officials to take stock of the situation.

Headed by Rajit Punhani, joint secretary (Kashmir) in the home ministry, the team submitted a report, based on which the J&K government was advised to beef up security around telecom infrastructure. The police lost face as it failed to nab the culprits and prevent further killings. “All these killings are interlinked and we’ll soon neutralise these people,” Gareeb Dass, DIG north Kashmir, told the media.

On June 9, Bomai resident Altaf-ur-Rehman, who was a pharmacist as well as a Hurriyat Conference (G) activist, fell to militant bullets as he was leaving the sub-district hospital after night duty.

Rehman’s political affiliation ensured widespread condemnation of his killing, with Geelani putting the blame on ‘Indian agencies’.

Egg on the face

On June 16, a day after unknown gunmen killed the sixth man in Sopore, police put up black-and-white posters of two men — Abdul Qayoom Najar and Imtiyaz Ahmad Kandoo — and announced a reward of ₹10 lakh each for their capture.

Five days later, in an embarrassing development, a shopkeeper in Kupwara accused the police of using his picture in the ‘wanted’ poster. Scared for his life, Irfan Ahmad Shah claimed that the image was from a family picnic at a tourist park in neighbouring Baramulla last year. As compensation for the goof-up, the police have advised Shah to be alert and stay indoors.

Former chief minister Omar Abdullah as well as the Hurriyat have linked the killings to Union defence minister Manohar Parrikar’s fairly recent ‘neutralise terrorist through terrorist’ remark, reviving memories of a pro-government militia called Ikhwan-ul-Muslimoon, which was responsible for some of the worst cases of human rights abuse in the early ’90s.

Every family in Sopore wants to know the name behind the mindless killings. The police say it’s the militants; the locals refuse to believe the ‘Indian agencies’ have no role to play in it.

(Tawqeer Hussain is a Delhi-based journalist)

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