Ahead of their weddings, the would-be grooms in Kashmir customarily are asked by be wary of what might wreck the recreation: an accident or illness. So when guns started roaring in Khudwani, Sharjeel Sheikh was asked by his family to stay where he was, although he wasn’t far from the site of danger.
Sharjeel, 28, a driver by profession, whose wedding was scheduled on April 23, was in his neighbour’s house in Khudwani. When the gunfight broke out, his family called him and told him not to venture out.
At about 9am, however, while going to the washroom in the compound of the neighbour’s house, the government forces fired at him, local people said.
Sharjeel’s house is barely 300 meters from the encounter site. When he fell, people couldn’t take his body to his home but to his uncle’s place in nearby Ruhpora village.
“They are not letting his family come out,” said Fayaz Ahmad, Sharjeel’s uncle.
“In fact they kept firing towards the house where he was killed and did not let the people lift his body,” Fayaz said, sobbing.
Local women wailed over Sharjeel’s body laid in the compound of Fayaz’s house. A girl in mid-twenties comes running into the house, screaming and crying. She faints after looking at Sharjeel’s face.
“She is the one he was getting married to. She came all the way from Sallar, Pahalgam,” a man told me in a hushed tone.
“She had to come as bride. Look what she had to see,” a wailing woman said.
Local residents said the police had framed Sharjeel in last year’s Amarnath attack case. He had been named as one of the 11 accused in the charge sheet filed in a local court in January this year.
Of those named in the charge sheet, four LeT militants — Abu Ismail, Yawar Bashir, Maaviya and Furqaan — were killed in two different encounters last year.
Aijaz Ahmad Wagay of Srigufwara, Bilal Ahmad Reshi of Bijbehara, Zahoor Ahmad Sheikh of Khudwani, and a juvenile (name withheld, out on bail now) were apprehended, while Khalid Muzafar Dar, Tanveer Ahmad Dar and Sarjeel Ahmad Shiekh, all from Khudwani had been shown as absconding in the charge sheet.