21-year old woman from Kulgam was hit by bullets when she was trying to save her younger brother from forces in DH Pora village
|| K.LEADER DESK
Scores of burnt vehicles still lie in open in the compound where a police station once stood painted in Damhal Hanjipora (DH Pora) in Kulgam district of south Kashmir. The police station became the first target of the angry protestors. The scenes in and outside the station are a reminder of the anger that erupted in DH Pora on July 9, day after the killing of Hizb commander Burhan Muzaffar Wani. Locals vividly remember the events that led to the rage minutes after 21-year-old Yasmeena Akhter was shot dead by the forces. Muzaffar Ahmad, a local said at around 11 am people started to gather in main chowk to offer funeral prayers in-absentia for Burhan.
“It was a peaceful gathering though there were azadi slogans raised by some youth as well,” recalls Ahmad who was part of the procession. Suddenly, Ahmad said forces arrived on the scene and attacked the mourners. “Everybody ran for the life,” said Ahmad. Amid the chaos, a relative of Yasmeena said they came to know that 13-year old brother of Yasmeena had been arrested. “The army men were beating Moin (Yasmeena’s brother). We ran to save him from their clutches but Yasmeena hold his arm and started to run towards the nearby alley. Next, we saw Yasmeena on the ground, bleeding,” he said. Outside, the alley where Yasmeena, according to her relatives, had run towards with her brother before she was hit by the bullet street has a number of bullet marks on the shutters of shops. A neighbor of the family said after Yasmeena was hit by bullet in her head, one of her brothers lifted her on his back and ran towards hospital while she was bleeding profusely.
At the hospitals the doctors however declared Yasmeena brought dead. Yasmeena, who had applied for college and enrolled for an ITI course, would help family financially by doing embroidery work. The locals alleged that soon after the news of Yasmeena’s death spread, several forces’ men barged into the hospital and tried to take away her body. “I resisted but they dragged me by my hair down the stairs towards the police station (across the road). I kept shouting that they killed my sister and wanted to take away her body. But the soldiers said they would kill me if I didn’t shut up. Then, they hit me on the back of my head and I passed out,” Yasmeena’s sisiter had told Indian express. Insha’s cries had brought the people out again, and the “sight of her being beaten up and falling unconscious made people run towards her”. “The soldiers left her on the street and ran away after seeing the people coming out,” said another local Mudasir Qayoom.
“As soon as her body was buried at around 3.40 pm, the mourners started shouting slogans of azadi and marched towards the police station. The forces inside the station shot in the air and fired tear gas shells. But they soon left.’’ “In no time, the police station was on fire. The angry villagers also brought a bulldozer to demolish the building,” he said.