Over 20,000 Attend Hizbul Chief Burhan Wani’s Burial in Srinagar

The funeral took place amid pro-Islam and pro-Azadi slogans.

Kashmiri Muslims carry the body of Burhan Wani, a separatist militant leader, during his funeral in Tral, south of Srinagar on 9 July. (Photo: Reuters)

More than 20,000 people on Saturday attended the burial of top Hizbul commander Burhan Muzaffar Wani in south Kashmir’s Tral town.

People from different parts of Pulwama district gathered at Shariefabad in Tral to join the funeral of Wani, who was killed along with two of his associates in a gunfight with security forces in Bamdoora village of Anantnag district on Friday.

Shouting pro-Islam and pro-Azadi slogans, mourners at the burial appeared surcharged as youths raised slogans vowing to follow Wani’s path.

The authorities, allowing the burial procedure, withdrew all security forces deployed around the ground to prevent clashes with the agitated people.

People in Kashmir joined the funeral by defying the curfew restrictions. (Photo: Reuters)

The authorities had imposed a curfew in the entire Pulwama district, but people defied it to attend Wani’s burial.

Separatists, including hardliner Sayed Ali Shah Geelani, moderate Mirwaiz Umer Farooq and Yasin Malik have called for a day’s strike to protest Wani’s killing. Lashkar-e Taiba, a militant outfit and Asiya Andrabi, the radical chief of women separatist Dukhtaran-e-Milat, have called for a three-day shutdown in the Valley.

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