Wife dies rescuing husband from masked man

Abdul Majeed Gufur, 50, is a well-settled man in the small village of Shahgund, some six kilometres from Hajin. 

A worker of People’s Democratic Party and a businessman dealing in carpets, Gufur has four children including a girl aged 8 years.

   

On Sunday at 9:30 pm, Gufur was strolling outside his house. After spending some time out, he came in and went for ablution to prepare for night prayers. “As I went to my room and spread the prayer mat, a masked man came from behind me and put his pistol on me.”

“He (the masked man) asked Gafur why he was associated with politics. “I replied for the sake of people’s benefit and if anyone tells you I have committed anything wrong then do whatever you like to do,” he said. 

Gafur said that he was unaware that the gunman had already found entry into the house and had “terrified my 12-year-old son Dawood and daughters Nighat, 8, and Ishrat, 18. My 20-year-old son Ishfaq wasn’t home.”

After the masked man failed “to impute any wrongdoing by me, he accused me of having arms dumped in the locker.” 

“He said you have kept weapons in the locker of your room and demanded the keys. After having the keys, he opened the locker and took away Rs 3 lakh cash and some gold ornaments of my daughters,” Gafur said. 

“When he tried to leave, I suspected foul play. Realising he was a robber and not a militant, I argued with him asking him to leave the cash and gold ornaments. There ensued a scuffle. He stabbed my wife in the neck by his knife as she came to my rescue and then he fled away”. 

The locals on Sunday evening had seen three bike-borne masked men roaming around the isolated Bagaht Mohalla locality of Shagund village, which has just five to eight houses amid dense apple orchards.

The presence of the bikers forced everyone in the street to go inside. “They even beat up few youths,” a local said. 

According to the relatives, one gunman had already sneaked into Gafur’s house cajoling his 14-year-old son Dawood, and his two teenage daughters to reveal the details of the cash and gold in the house, while her mother kept busy in the kitchen. 

A police officer of the division said the masked man had first sat with the family and then demanded to search the house. “After finding the cash and the gold he tried to flee resulting into a scuffle in which Shakeela, 40, wife of Gufur received critical knife injuries.”

Shakeela was removed to the Community Health Centre from where she was referred to SKIMS Bemina, Srinagar. 

Shakeela couldn’t survive due to excessive blood loss, according to the doctors.

The police officer said an FIR 41/2018 under section 307,392,452 RPC and 7/23 I/A Act has been registered at police station Hajin in this matter and investigation taken up.

The relatives said the “robbers seemed aware of and familiar with the family’s wealth. They perhaps also knew that he had sold some land to send his elder son outside the country for medical degree.”

“It seems a well thought-out conspiracy,” a neighbour said, demanding a thorough investigation in to the matter.

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