A continuous rat-a-tat on the door of Mushtaq Ahamd Bhat and his neighbour Abdul Ghani woke them up on frosty Sunday night in Pinglena village of south Kashmir’s Pulwama district. As they answered the knock, army men entered their houses separated by a boundary wall of corrugated tin sheets, and searched thoroughly.
Soon they asked both Bhat and Ghani to guide them around the neighbourhood.
“He (Bhat) was taken from one side and I from the other. And as he along with army men entered a dirt lane, numerous gun shots rang out,” said Ghani.
The army men took Ghani back to his home. The bullets were continuously raining down and the whole village was dotted by forces.
A little later, much to the shock of Ghani, the soldiers, according to him, brought the lifeless blood soaked body of Bhat inside his (Ghani’s) house.
“I was left stunned. They put the body in a room and locked me and my family inside another room,” he said.
The gun fight between the forces and the militants ended after 17 hours with the killing of three militants, four soldiers and an SOG personnel. At least ten security men including Deputy Inspector General south range, an army brigadier and a Lt Colonel also suffered injuries.
In the morning, the forces allowed Ghani and his family to move to another house in the neighbourhood.
“Thereafter, I do not know what happened,” said Ghani in a rather feeble voice.
A family member of Bhat, who did not wish to be named, alleged that he (Bhat) “was killed in cold blood as the forces used him as human shield.”
He also said that the body of Bhat was handed over to them late Monday evening. “They had taken the body to Police Control Room, Srinagar and kept us waiting for hours together,” the family member said.
District police chief Chandan Kohli did not respond to the calls of this reporter.
Bhat, a father of two daughters ran a small grocery in the locality to make a living. “In just a jiffy, their life turned upside down,” said one of the wailing relatives of Bhat.
Amid shrieks and sobs, Bhat was consigned to grave on Tuesday morning in his ancestral grave yard.