AMSHIPORA REDUX?

Days after the sleuths completed investigations in the July 2020 fake encounter involving the killing of three Rajouri labourers, the killing of a teenage trio in a gun battle in city outskirts, has run into controversy with their families claiming they were innocent students, reports

- Umar Mukhtar

On the cold evening of December 29, Mohammad Maqbool Gannie, a head constable posted at Ganderbal police station received a message in his police WhatsApp group that an encounter had started between militants and a mixed contingent of army, CRPF and police at Lawaypora, in Srinagar outskirts. Given the routine of gun-battles, he treated the news lightly. Hours later, he was informed through a call from his family at Putrigam (Pulwama) that his son Ajaz Ahmad, 22, had not returned home.

Ahmad had earlier left home for Degree College Pulwama. Late afternoon, he had rung up his sister to tell her that he was with a friend and might stay back for the night.

WHERE IS YOUR SON?

Gannie called Ahmad’s number multiple-times but it came switched off. “I thought he might be at a friend’s place and might have some issue with his cell phone,” Gannie said. Later that night, he saw another update of the encounter on his WhatsApp and it was still going on. After that, he slept.

The following day, around 9 AM, when Gannie was getting ready for work, he got a call from police station Rajpora. It was the Station House Officer (SHO).

“Where is your son?” he asked Gannie. Bewildered, Gannie told him the same story. The officer asked Gannie for a photograph of his son. A policeman himself, Gannie knew what the context of the demand for a photograph meant. He was told about the encounter he had been reading about in the WhatsApp messages.

The SHO told him to rush to Police Control Room Srinagar. “I had no inkling about what was going on,” Gannie said.

Hoping Against Hope