A 12-year-old boy, Atif Mir, was held hostage and killed by LeT terrorists in Kashmir’s Hajin town on Friday, 22 March. A heart-wrenching video of his mother pleading on a loudspeaker to let her son go surfaced on social media on Friday.
A 24-hour gun battle ensued between the security forces and the militants in which both the militants were killed. Mir’s body was recovered from the rubble of the building where he was being held hostage.
The brutal incident has shocked the nation, and condolences and solidarity for Mir poured in on social media.
Scenes From the Funeral
Several videos and photographs from Atif Mir’s funeral procession were posted on Twitter.
‘Victims of Fruitless Struggle’
Twitter users condemned the brutal murder. “Selective condemnations & glorification of violence will keep killing our people. Innocents like Atif will continue to become victims of fruitless struggle,” said one Twitter user.
‘Observe the Quiet Leaders’
Another asked the country to “observe and keep in mind those leaders who are keeping quiet in the death of the 12-year-old Atif Mir, used as a human shield by the militants and killed by them.”
President of the Jammu & Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party Mehbooba Mufti was questioned by Twitterati too, for her tweets.
Grieve the killing of both Atif Mir just like you grieved the custodial death of school teacher Rizwan Asad Pandit, said one Twitter user.
Atif was a class 6 student at Army Goodwill School, and he was buried about 500 metres away from his school.
(Based on a tweet, The Quint had earlier attributed the quote “I lost my best friend, my brother, my secret keeper, my companion, my best man, my childhood, my youth, my innocence, my present, my past, my future, my happiness. I lost. I lost.” to Atif Mir’s friend. However, the quote was removed from the copy when it came to our notice that it was wrongly attributed to Mir’s friend.)
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