Jammu temple row: In insane times

Following the incident, Yasir, 29, was arrested and continues to be in judicial custody. The nearly two dozen men who indulged in violence following the temple incident were let off almost immediately following threats by the VHP of a 2008 Amarnath Yatra-like agitation. Nearly a dozen people, including a police officer, were injured in the violence.

Yasir’s younger brother Tanvir, 25, who had accompanied him to Jammu, also spent a fortnight in police lock-up before being released.

Back home in Shiva village, Yasir’s family, including wife Babli Begum, one-year-old daughter Ainoor, mother Naseema Begum, elder sister Ruiyada Begum and youngest brother Farqan, wait in dread. Farqan also suffers from mental illness.

The family says Tanvir had taken Yasir and Farqan to Jammu following the Bhalla mosque incident to show them to a doctor. Yasir had undergone psychiatric treatment in the past, and the family was apprehensive his violent streak had returned.

Yasin’s late father, Kher Din Sie, was in the Army and fought in the 1962, 1965 and 1971 wars. His sister Ruiyada, a mother of two, lost her husband to terrorists. Naseema doesn’t know whom to turn to, and in desperation, recently sought the help of local BJP leader Govind Singh.

Pleading with folded hands, tears flowing, she says, “Let someone take me to Jammu. I will apologise to the people there and appeal to them to pardon my son as he is of unsound mind. We are poor people, but we will borrow money to pay for the loss of temple property.”

Govind Singh, who says he received a call from local BJP MLA Shakti Singh Parihar asking about Yasir, admits he knows the 29-year-old and his condition. Former sarpanch Gursher Khan as well as the current one, Ghulam Hassan Naik, also vouch that Yasir has been suffering from mental illness.

Naik talks about the time Yasir was “fine”. “He bought a tractor some years ago and everyone in Shiva would borrow it for use. Yasir himself worked in the fields for 10-12 hours a day. Then something snapped.”

Sister Ruiyada digs out a hospital registration slip of 2015 showing Yasir had been getting treatment at a government-run psychiatric diseases hospital in Jammu.

On June 14, the family says, while Tanvir, Yasir and Farqan were at the clinic of Dr Jagdish Thappa, which is located near the Jammu temple that saw the violence, Yasir slipped out and apparently entered the temple, and Tanvir went looking for him. Yasir was caught destroying the flower decorations at the Jammu temple and allegedly kicking a Shiva idol. Both Yasir and Tanvir were arrested.

Dr Thappa denies treating Yasir or Farqan that day or talking to them, though the family has a prescription dated June 14 made out by him.

Ruiyada says a distraught Naseema keeps breaking down. As the family depends on Tanvir to do things about the house, even Farqan’s medicines are yet to be bought. Tanvir has stayed back in Jammu, waiting for his brother to be released.

There are few in the city willing to give the family a hearing, though. A day after the incident, rubbishing claims that Yasir may not have known what he was doing, Health and Education Minister Baliram Bhagat said it was suspicious that he had come all the way from Doda district to Jammu. “If mad, he should have jumped into the river Tawi from the bridge,” Bhagat said.

District Magistrate, Jammu, Simrandeep Singh has described the incidents of alleged sacrilege at temples as “intelligent terrorism” and linked to “cross-border terror”.

Singh tried to impose the Public Safety Act on Yasir, but this could not be executed after the government took a stand in the Assembly that a person with a mental condition could not be held under it. This was a virtual admission of Yasir’s condition.

Later, a medical board examined Yasir, but declined to give an opinion saying he needed to be kept under observation at a psychiatric hospital for a fortnight.

Yasir isn’t the only one caught in the J&K ruling coalition’s politics though. So is a much-lauded policeman.

As the mob bayed for Yasir’s blood on June 14 and demanded that he be handed over to them, it was head constable Rehmatullah, 50, who managed to get him to the police station safely.

While senior police officers present at the spot praised his efforts, Rehmatullah has since been suspended. Again, after protesters claimed he had slapped one of them.

Rehmatullah remembers receiving a call on June 14 that “terrorists had entered a temple”. He had rushed to the temple, and found Yasir standing outside the clinic of Dr Thappa, “hurling abuses”. Rehmatullah claims Yasir was also raising pro-Pakistan slogans.

As Yasir carried what appeared a bundle under his arm, people feared it was a bomb. Rehmatullah says when he managed to overpower Yasir, “people started beating him. Somehow I managed to drag him out and pushed him into a police car.”

In the scuffle, Rehmatullah too was injured. His efforts were initially praised by IGP, Jammu zone, Danish Rana, and SSP, Jammu, Sunil Gupta. An officer admits they had to suspend him later “to cool down tempers”.

Rehmatullah says he bears no grudge. “I do not mind if my suspension saves the nation or is of some help to my seniors in controlling the situation,” he says.