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Journalism of Courage
Barely two km from J-K Chief Minister Mufti Md Sayeed’s Nowgam residence, protests rocked Soiteng village on Srinagar outskirts today over the killing of an 18-yr-old student allegedly by the Army. The government has ordered a magisterial inquiry into the episode. Hundreds of villagers came out on the Srinagar bypass road and raised slogans against Sayeed, Army personnel and the state police. Traffic on the bypass had to be diverted for three hours.
But the sequence of events as narrated by both Javeed’s family and the Army left many questions unanswered. Javeed’s father, Ghulam Nabi Magray, told The Indian Express that last night at around 10.30 pm, when the family retired to bed, Javeed went to his room to study. ‘‘He took a candle with him as there was a power cut in the area,’’ he said.
The family came to know only in the morning that Javeed’s body was lying at the Nowgam police station. Relatives said Javeed was a good student. ‘‘His aim was to become an engineer and he was working hard to achieve that,’’ a relative said.
An Army spokesperson said Javeed was a militant and a pistol, one magazine and seven rounds were found in his possession. The Army had cordoned off the area after information that some militants were hiding there. ‘‘When the Army challenged them, the militants retaliated. Javeed was caught in the cross-fire,’’ he said.
A police officer said the Army, in its FIR lodged with Nowgam Police Station, had said the boy died in the cross-fire and a pistol was recovered from him. He said police had lodged a separate case. Late in the evening, police handed over Javeed’s body to his family for burial.
