NSA claims forces didn’t kill Hurriyat leader; cops say no probe, doctor says no autopsy

National Security Adviser M K Narayanan told the Cabinet on Thursday that Hurriyat leader Sheikh Abdul Aziz was not killed by a bullet fired...

National Security Adviser M K Narayanan told the Cabinet on Thursday that Hurriyat leader Sheikh Abdul Aziz was not killed by a bullet fired by the security forces. However, the police are yet to probe the incident and not even a post-mortem was conducted.

Narayanan told the Cabinet on Thursday that it was not clear who had fired the bullet that felled Aziz. Dr Saleem Iqbal, a surgeon on duty in the casualty department of SMHS hospital in Srinagar, said a post-mortem was not conducted and there was no bullet in his body. “His entry wound was in left hypochondrium and the exit wound was in the right hypochondrium. There was no bullet inside and his intestine was protruding,” he said.

Aziz was brought to the hospital by his supporters and no policemen accompanied him. When he was brought to the hospital, Dr Iqbal said, his “ECG was flat” and he was dead.

His supporters took his body to the Jamia mosque in downtown Srinagar and to the Eidgha for burial the following morning.

Senior Superintendent of Police, Srinagar, Syed Ahfad-ul-Mujtaba said that they (Srinagar Police) had nothing to do with the case as he (Sheikh Aziz) was wounded outside their jurisdiction.

The J-K Police say they have not even investigated the cases of protesters killed or injured in Police and Central Reserve Police Force firing. “We are in the fire-fighting mode. The paper work will start only when we get time,” said Inspector General of Police, (North Kashmir), B Srinivasan.

“None of my boys has gone to Srinagar. We are not reading anything into it. We halted them (the procession) and it was a bonafide act. He (Sheikh Aziz) was one among several other people who were injured that day,” he said.

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Aziz was wounded when a contingent of police and CRPF opened fire at Chehal on the Srinagar-Muzafarabad highway – a few kilometers short of Army’s Rampur Brigade which forms the entry to the Uri sector along the Line of Control—on August 11.

He was rushed to the District Hospital in Baramulla first and the doctors there referred him to Srinagar for treatment.

This reporter had met Sheikh minutes before he was hit. The march along the highway had started from Sopore—the main fruit market of Kashmir. A bullet fired by the police and CRPF men standing a hundred metres away had already hit a young man and he was being carried to a bus. The angry crowd was throwing stones at the police and CRPF contingent.

This was when Sheikh Aziz and another Hurriyat leader Shabir Shah walked towards the crowd. “I will try and pacify them,” Sheikh Aziz told this reporter, pointing at half a dozen young men who were throwing stones.

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Then the police and the CRPF contingent fired few teargas shells followed by bullets. Aziz was hit and he fell on the road. He was picked up by his supporters and taken to the hospital.