Within hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a Rs 80,000-crore economic and development package for Jammu and Kashmir in Srinagar on November 7, the state was plunged into a new crisis caused by the death of a 22-year-old youth that his family and the eyewitnesses are alleging to be a “targeted killing”.
Gowhar Nazir Dar, a computer-engineering student at the SSM College of Engineering and Technology in Pattan, was killed during protests in Zainakote area, the outskirts of Srinagar, that intensified on the second-day of home confinement imposed by the government on separatist leaders and protesters as a security measure for the prime ministerial visit.
Locals, family members, some mainstream politicians and the separatists have since then been demanding the removal of the 44 battalion of Central Reserve Police Force camp, stationed in a defunct Hindustan Machine Tools factory established in 1971, alleging that the men from the camp killed Dar.The CRPF claimed that their men only fired a tear gas shell to quell the protests. A probe was ordered after the police registered a case against the CRPF personnel.
On hearing the news of his death, Dar’s 60-year-old grandmother, Rehti Begum also died, apparently due to shock. Leading separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani called the killing “a gift of Narendra Modi to people of Kashmir on his visit to Srinagar”.
'In Cold Blood'
Nazir Ahmad Dar, Gowhar's father, told a local news agency that police lied to media over the killing of his son.
“My son was fired at from point blank range," Dar said. “He was killed by a live bullet fired by CRPF which doctors in SKIMS also confirmed to us. Any teargas shell did not kill him as police and CRPF has claimed. My son was not participating in any protest. He had gone to buy milk from the market.”
Next day, at least 30 persons were injured in clashes during a complete shutdown across the valley. Gowhar's fellow students at the college staged protests, and the government forces responded with teargas shelling. In his memory, the college announced a “Shaheed Gowhar Nazir scholarship” that will be given to an orphan student every year on the day of his killing.
Tariq Hameed Kara, member of Parliament and senior leader of the PDP, has alleged that it was a planned targeted killing and added his voice to the demand for the CRPF camp’s removal. After visiting the deceased’s family last week, Karra, who has been against his party’s alliance with the Bhartiya Janata Party in the state government, told the Rising Kashmir what he had heard: “According to eyewitnesses, a CRPF officer without uniform came in a CRPF vehicle with his colleagues who were in uniform and parked their armoured vehicle half a meter away from the incident spot. Gowhar was riding his scooty when the man in his civvies fired bullet into his head.”
A ritualistic response
The government has not taken any action against the camp yet but in the on-going probe, the eyewitnesses have told the inquiry officials that a man without uniform shot at Gowhar. So far around a dozen witnesses have recorded their statements with the officials and more are expected in coming days.
This inquiry process is not new to Kashmir. After every civilian killing, the government orders probes that have negligible results in delivering justice. The separatist leaders are not the only ones questioning yet another ritualistic probe as Gowhar’s father also asked about the hundreds of inquiries that various governments have ordered. “Which policeman or other security forces’ men has been punished till now for killing our innocent youth," he asked. "The inquiries are ordered simply to douse Kashmiris anger. Nothing will emerge from this inquiry. No one will be punished, and our anger against the killers of our sons will never lessen,” he said.
Since February this year, the government has ordered seven probes that have brought no results so far. These probes were ordered into civilian killings, except one in which army claimed that it had killed suspected militants. Probe into Gowhar’s killing is being seen as yet another addition to hundreds of pending probes that the government has been ordering after every civilian killing in Kashmir over the years. The protesting students from Gowhar’s college also raised the question of these pending enquiries.
The Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front has called the probe an attempt to shield the killers. “Forces have yet again brutally killed another innocent Kashmiri youth in cold blood and to hide the criminal act of forces, so-called rulers have again called for an inquiry,” the JKLF vice-chairman Advocate Bashir Ahmad Bhat said at the slain youth’s residence.
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Gowhar Nazir Dar, a computer-engineering student at the SSM College of Engineering and Technology in Pattan, was killed during protests in Zainakote area, the outskirts of Srinagar, that intensified on the second-day of home confinement imposed by the government on separatist leaders and protesters as a security measure for the prime ministerial visit.
Locals, family members, some mainstream politicians and the separatists have since then been demanding the removal of the 44 battalion of Central Reserve Police Force camp, stationed in a defunct Hindustan Machine Tools factory established in 1971, alleging that the men from the camp killed Dar.The CRPF claimed that their men only fired a tear gas shell to quell the protests. A probe was ordered after the police registered a case against the CRPF personnel.
On hearing the news of his death, Dar’s 60-year-old grandmother, Rehti Begum also died, apparently due to shock. Leading separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani called the killing “a gift of Narendra Modi to people of Kashmir on his visit to Srinagar”.
'In Cold Blood'
Nazir Ahmad Dar, Gowhar's father, told a local news agency that police lied to media over the killing of his son.
“My son was fired at from point blank range," Dar said. “He was killed by a live bullet fired by CRPF which doctors in SKIMS also confirmed to us. Any teargas shell did not kill him as police and CRPF has claimed. My son was not participating in any protest. He had gone to buy milk from the market.”
Next day, at least 30 persons were injured in clashes during a complete shutdown across the valley. Gowhar's fellow students at the college staged protests, and the government forces responded with teargas shelling. In his memory, the college announced a “Shaheed Gowhar Nazir scholarship” that will be given to an orphan student every year on the day of his killing.
Tariq Hameed Kara, member of Parliament and senior leader of the PDP, has alleged that it was a planned targeted killing and added his voice to the demand for the CRPF camp’s removal. After visiting the deceased’s family last week, Karra, who has been against his party’s alliance with the Bhartiya Janata Party in the state government, told the Rising Kashmir what he had heard: “According to eyewitnesses, a CRPF officer without uniform came in a CRPF vehicle with his colleagues who were in uniform and parked their armoured vehicle half a meter away from the incident spot. Gowhar was riding his scooty when the man in his civvies fired bullet into his head.”
A ritualistic response
The government has not taken any action against the camp yet but in the on-going probe, the eyewitnesses have told the inquiry officials that a man without uniform shot at Gowhar. So far around a dozen witnesses have recorded their statements with the officials and more are expected in coming days.
This inquiry process is not new to Kashmir. After every civilian killing, the government orders probes that have negligible results in delivering justice. The separatist leaders are not the only ones questioning yet another ritualistic probe as Gowhar’s father also asked about the hundreds of inquiries that various governments have ordered. “Which policeman or other security forces’ men has been punished till now for killing our innocent youth," he asked. "The inquiries are ordered simply to douse Kashmiris anger. Nothing will emerge from this inquiry. No one will be punished, and our anger against the killers of our sons will never lessen,” he said.
Since February this year, the government has ordered seven probes that have brought no results so far. These probes were ordered into civilian killings, except one in which army claimed that it had killed suspected militants. Probe into Gowhar’s killing is being seen as yet another addition to hundreds of pending probes that the government has been ordering after every civilian killing in Kashmir over the years. The protesting students from Gowhar’s college also raised the question of these pending enquiries.
The Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front has called the probe an attempt to shield the killers. “Forces have yet again brutally killed another innocent Kashmiri youth in cold blood and to hide the criminal act of forces, so-called rulers have again called for an inquiry,” the JKLF vice-chairman Advocate Bashir Ahmad Bhat said at the slain youth’s residence.