Takiabal, India - If their plan was to spread fear in a locality considered the bastion of separatists, the militants who walked into the house of Ghulam Nabi Dar in Sopore’s Muslimpeer locality last night and shot dead his two daughters may have succeeded.
There is stunned incomprehension in the town at what prompted the attack, though the police suspect the killings were an act of moral policing to spread panic among the women, especially young girls.
Frechi Begum says her two daughters, 19-year-old Akhtara Bano and 16-year-old Arifa, hardly ever left their two-room house. “Nobody warned us. My daughters hadn’t done anything wrong. I want an answer why my daughters were killed,” she says, demanding strict punishment for their murderers.
Sitting among a group of neighbours, Dar — who had gone out to offer evening prayers — is inconsolable. “Even if my daughters had committed any mistake, at least they should have given them a chance to explain,” he wails.
A labourer at a nearby PDS shop, Dar says his daughters were kidnapped around 8 pm and gunned down within an hour. “The gunmen killed them a kilometre away, in Takiabal locality.”
Frecha says the men (who numbered 10 according to eyewitnesses) were speaking Urdu and Kashmiri and wearing masks. “Akhtara was preparing food. A gunman, who was accompanied by a local, enquired about her younger sister, who was watching television in a neighbour’s house. They first caught hold of Akhtara and later went inside the house of our relative and also brought out Arifa.”
Dar says four of their women relatives followed the gunmen, pleading with them to release the girls, but to no avail. “They threatened my relatives not to follow them. When the women didn’t listen, the gunmen killed both the girls.” The police retrieved their bullet-ridden bodies from the roadside.
Naza Begum, who was among those who followed the gunmen, says they had all the details about their congested neighbourhood. “Before kidnapping the girls, the gunmen cordoned four houses... They assured us that after some enquiries, the girls would be left unharmed,” she says.
Superintendent of Police, Sopore, Altaf Khan said they have identified the two local militants allegedly working for the Lashkar-e-Toiba who were responsible for the killings. “The girls were killed as the militants operating in the town are trying to enforce moral policing,” Khan said. “As per our initial reports, three militants committed this crime. We have identified the two local militants as Wasim Ganai and Mohammad Muzaffar Naikoo. Investigation is on to trace the third.”
This is not for the first time that militants have targeted girls in Kashmir. Last year, four women had been killed in south Kashmir’s Keller village.
Hurriyat flays ‘heinous’ killings
The hardline Hurriyat Conference led by Syed Ali Shah Geelani has condemned the killing of the two girls, terming it a heinous crime against humanity. However, it added that it couldn’t say who killed these girls, adding that in the past, security personnel have been “awarded for killing innocent civilians”.
On the other hand, CM Omar Abdullah called the “muted condemnation” by citizens and separatist leaders as “unfortunate”. Speaking on the sidelines of the Chief Ministers’ Conference on Internal Security in Delhi, Omar said, “If there was even the slightest of indication that these deaths have been the result of high handedness of security forces, today, the whole Valley would have erupted in flames.”