‘Disregard for Kashmiri lives’, say political leaders after civilian truck driver killed in army firing incident

This comes at a time when the district administration and the police in Kathua ordered inquiries after the custodial death of a Gujjar youth in Kathua.

In its statement after the killing, the army’s Chinar Corps said that the driver jumped a check post on Wednesday when he was asked to stop.

“On 05 Feb 2025, based on a very specific intelligence input about the movement of terrorists, a Mobile Vehicle Check Post (MVCP) was established by Security Forces. One speeding suspicious civil truck was spotted. When challenged, the truck didn’t stop despite repeated warnings (and) instead accelerated further while crossing the check post,” the statement said.

The troops pursued the vehicle for over 23 km, the army said. “Shots were fired aiming (at) tyres to deflate, which forced (the) vehicle to halt at Sangrama Chowk. Consequent to detailed search, the injured driver was immediately evacuated to GMC Baramulla by Security Forces where he was declared dead”.

But the family of the slain driver, however, questioned the army’s version of the incident and demanded that they release CCTV footage of the incident. Significantly, there are several security camps and security check posts on the stretch.

According to Mir’s cousin Abdul Rashid, Mir had left home at 10 pm Wednesday with a truck full of apple boxes and was heading towards Srinagar. It was a co-driver who alerted them of Mir’s death.

“If the army is telling the truth, let them share the CCTV footage with us. There is a CCTV camera installed on every security force vehicle,” Mir’s cousin Abdul Rashid told The Indian Express. “They (army) are saying they chased him for 23 km. There are many (security) camps on this stretch and every camp has CCTV cameras installed on the roads… Let them show it to us to satisfy us”.

He claimed there were “contradictions in the statements made by the police and the army”.

“How could they chase him for 23 km when the distance between his home and the place where the incident happened is less than 16 km? The army says they chased him for 23 km but the SP sahib told us he was chased for 35 km. We also want to know when he had to go to Srinagar, why was the vehicle in the (opposite) direction, going to Baramulla. His clothes were in the dirt. We want to know if they had beaten or tortured him before killing,” he said.

A doctor at the Baramulla Hospital said Mir was brought in by the Army at 1 pm. “He had a single bullet injury with both entry and exit wounds. The nature of injury suggested that he was shot at from close range,” he said.

Another relative too echoed this. “The bullet had hit his armpit and had exited from the other side. If the army had aimed at the tyres or the vehicle, the bullet couldn’t have hit his armpit,” this relative said.

The oldest of four siblings, Mir is survived by his daily wager father, a homemaker mother, three brothers and a married sister.

Meanwhile, opposition parties have called the incident a “disregard for Kashmiri lives”.

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leader Iltija Mufti has also questioned the Army’s version of the incident. “…you (army) say that you chased a civilian for 24 km in a wild goose chase and then you targeted the tyres (of his vehicle)… But how was he (Mir) hit? How was he fatally killed? I want to ask the army that you seized the truck, what did you get from that truck?” she asked in a hurriedly called press conference in Srinagar.

Peoples Conference chairman Sajad Lone has termed Mir killing as a “murder”. “Killing is a killing irrespective of the source or the context. The killing of the truck driver is a murder. And it being executed by security forces makes it even more heinous,” Lone said, calling it “contempt and disregard for Kashmiri lives”

Reacting to the incident, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said that he had ordered an inquiry and had taken it up with the Union government.

“I have seen the reports of excessive use of force & harassment of Makhan Din in police custody in Billawar leading to his suicide and the death of Waseem Ahmed Malla (Mir), shot by the army under circumstances that are not entirely clear. Both these incidents are highly unfortunate and should not have happened,” Omar said in a post on X, adding that J&K “will never be completely normalised and free of terror without the cooperation of & partnership with the local population”.