Shopian ‘Fake Encounter’, Victims Demand Justice
On July 18, 2020, three boys, named Abrar Ahmed Khan, Abrar Yousuf Chouhan and Imtiyaz Hussain aged 21, 18, 26 respectively, were killed by the Indian forces. As it has become a common practice in Kashmir, the trio were labeled as ‘terrorists’ after being killed in a fake encounter stage-managed by the Indian army and CRPF in Shopian.
Instead of handing over the dead bodies of the innocent youth to their families they were taken for burial to Baramullah some 80 kilometers away from the encounter site after being listed as unidentified. Hailing from of Dhar Sakri village of Qotranka in Rajouri these youths had come to the Ashimpora area of Shopian, where they were working as labourers in apple and walnut orchards.
According to their families, they had lost communication with them on July 17. They had lodged missing reports of the youth in their respective areas. The families claimed that their boys had been murdered in a fake encounter that occurred on July 18. However, the dead bodies were in such a horrible condition, that they couldn’t get recognized by their families.
The forces even did not handover their dead bodies and buried them far off the place unidentified with the other militants. It is extremely inhuman and immoral and of course suspicious to not even hand over the bodies of those killed to their kith and kin for identification and burial. The families had demanded just and accurate judicial investigation against these culprits.
In Indian Occupied Kashmir, the number of killings (custodial and judicial) this year (2020) has swelled to 172, and is increasing rapidly. Ironically, no one bats an eye on these severe brutal, traumatic and heart wrenching incidents of violence.
Every year, people of the occupied Kashmir particularly the youth continue to fall prey to the Indian state-sponsored violence but the global community has not been able to hold India accountable of the war crimes its troops have been committing against the defenseless and unarmed civilians in Kashmir. It is high time that the world should wakeup to bring the perpetrators of the barbaric violence to justice.
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