Srinagar, July 03, 2021 (PPI-OT):In Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, days after the killing of a teenage boy Zakir Naik Bashir in a fake encounter, a pall of fear has descended upon the locals of the picturesque Chimmer area of Kulgam district who are now refusing to talk to anyone on the matter. The controversy started on Thursday, a day after the so-called encounter in Chimmer in which the police had claimed to have killed three militants including Zakir Naik Bashir.

The family members of 17-year-old Zakir Bashir in a video had maintained that he was a civilian who was dragged out of his home and killed in cold blood. However, now the locals are not wishing to talk to media persons about the allegations cast by the family. In hushed tones, the locals told media that they don’t wish to talk on the matter even on the basis of anonymity. “If you wish to know what happened then you should visit the village. Everyone is afraid to talk on the phone,” a local said.

Earlier, Zakir’s brother-in-law Farooq Ahmad Butt in a video said that he (Bashir) was a cricket-loving youth. “A day prior to the encounter, he (Bashir) was supposed to be part of a cricket match. He asked my wife and his sister to spray chemicals in their orchard instead of him because of his match,” Butt said. “On the day of the encounter, Bashir and his brother Ashiq along with me had returned back home for lunchtime. We had gone to spray pesticides in the orchard. Ashiq went to take a bath in the stream while Zakir was at home,” Butt said.

He said some hours after they had taken the lunch; there was a crackdown. “They took Ashiq towards one side and Zakir was dragged and killed on the other,” he said, adding that Zakir wasn’t a militant. “If anyone would say that he was a militant we would agree that we are wrong.” He said that if he (Bashir) would have been a militant then how would he be playing cricket in the area. “He would have a gun on him.” In another viral video, three women relatives of Zakir are seen wailing and shouting, “He was innocent. If he would have been a gunman, he wouldn’t have been home.”

For more information, contact:
Kashmir Media Service
Phone: +92-51-4435548, +92-51-4435549
Fax: +92-51-4861736
Email: info@kmsnews.org
Website: www.kmsnews.org