Facing reverses and losing their ground fast since May this year, militants on Wednesday slayed a 30-year-old government school teacher in the dreaded ISIS-style after kidnapping him from his home in Shopian area of southern Kashmir, where marauding crowds on Tuesday, 18 October, torched a slain Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) activist’s house in broad daylight.
With his throat slit, Aijaz Ahmad Lone’s body was spotted beside a playground at Watoo, not far away from his village Gatipora on the outskirts of the district headquarters of Shopian. According to the police, he had been kidnapped by three unidentified gunmen from his home about an hour after midnight.
Lone’s assassins seem to have had decamped, leaving behind his cellphone and a handwritten note on behalf of ‘Hizbul Mujahideen Shopian’.
It claimed responsibility for Lone’s killing while labelling him as an informant of the police and security forces. They him responsible for the death of three militants – Zahid Ahmad Mir of Ganaupora, Irfan Abdullah Ganai of Heff and Asif Ahmad of Kathahalan – in an encounter on 9 October.
“This is a revenge for (the death of) Zahid Bhai, Irfan Bhai and Asif Bhai”, reads the handwritten note in Urdu that has been seized by the police. It adds:
With the grace of God, we have made a beginning. We are now warning all, that they would meet the same fate if they don’t refrain from acting as informants.
“We have in our possession the names of all those who inform the Army or the police. This is the last call and a warning to all of them. If they do not stop passing information (about our presence) to the police and Army, they should be prepared for this type of death”, says the note, rather tersely.
Officers in Shopian maintained that the police were examining the note and trying to verify its veracity. A police officer said:
We are surprised as this teacher was perceived to be fiercely sympathetic to militants. He was the son of a retired assistant sub inspector of police. To the best of our knowledge, he had never passed on any information to police or security forces.
Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Police in South Kashmir, Swayam Prakash Pani, told The Quint that a video on Facebook had shown Lone in company of Army at the encounter site on 9 October.
“It is believed to have led to his kidnapping and assassination,” Pani said, asserting that Lone had never acted as a source for Police or security forces. He said that the militants, who enjoyed a field day in the Valley for about three years, had been unnerved as the Police and security forces have eliminated as many as 63 guerrillas in South Kashmir in the last six months. The DIG said:
Never before has this number of terrorists been neutralised in South Kashmir in the last 10 years.
For about a year after the Hizbul Mujahideen poster boy Burhan Wani’s killing in July 2016, all counterinsurgency operations – particularly in South Kashmir – remained frozen.
With unprecedented mass support, militants recruited and strengthened their bases while moving in droves and shooting videos in orchards.
“Entire PDP stronghold in South Kashmir looked like a liberated zone. No ministers, senior officers or protected persons dared to pass through this area,” said Ghulam Mohiuddin Mir of Kareemabad, Pulwama. Pani said:
Most of their commanders are now dead. Here in Shopian, we have neutralised five terrorists in a week and reduced their number from 25 to 20. They are in total frustration as they have begun to feel the heat. Now, they have started barbaric acts, like Lone’s merciless killing, to terrorise the people so that they offer their houses as shelter to the terrorists during the upcoming winter.
“Among the senior, dreaded commanders there are now only six – Riyaz Naikoo, Samir Tiger, Sadam Padder, Zeenatul Islam, Altaf Kachru and Zakir Musa. We are confident to get them all in the next four to six months and have South Kashmir militant-free again by early next year as their recruitment has drastically reduced and the common people are turning against them due to their barbaric acts like Lone’s killing,” Pani said.
Lone’s slaying came a day after a militant-driven mob marched to Humhona village in Shopian, ransacked the slain PDP activist Mohammad Ramzan Sheikh’s house and set it on fire.
On Monday, 15 October, three militants of Hizbul Mujahideen appeared at Lone’s house and shot him dead. His family members and neighbours reportedly attacked the assailants and killed one of them who was later identified as Shaukat Falahi of nearby village Trenz.
Son of the prominent Jamaat-e-Islami leader Abdul Ahad Kumhar, Falahi had joined Hizbul Mujahideen in October 2016. He was an alumnus of a seminary run by Jamaat-e-Islami Hind at Azamgarh in UP. As his supporters decided to run for reprisal after the funeral, Police and security forces stood away like mute spectators and left Ramzan Sheikh’s family to fend for itself. The family is now without its head and house.
(The writer is a Srinagar-based journalist. He can be reached @ahmedalifayyaz.)
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