Brutally killed by the Indian Army and then tagged as Militant, 14-year-old Hazim Shafi Bhat is laid to rest at a faraway graveyard as a sinister plot is underway to blame a physically challenged teenage victim as a suspected militant associate.
As always, another case is closed, another inquiry will go through the eyewash, and yet another family gets a martyr in place of a son. He was the only brother of three sisters.
He was not a militant or a militant associate but a physically challenged kid and shouldn’t be treated like a militant.
His family was forced to bury their son far away from their locality because he was tagged as militant and dead militants under new arrangements are buried in far-flung remote areas to discourage people to visit their graves.
Family members of deceased Hazim Shafi Bhat are annoyed that their son was buried at Sheeri in Baramulla district which is 50 kilometres away from Hazim’s locality and was attended only by 10-15 family members.
A Class 7 student at Noorul Huda Public High School, Khaipora, Hazim was playing while grazing cattle at a spot near his home when gunfire broke out. While everyone started to run, he could not due to his physical disability. Later the family found his body near to the shootout location, more than half a kilometer from their house.
“First the police and CRPF said that they had killed a terrorist. Then they said it was an unidentified civilian who carried no arms and ammunition. There’s no ambiguity in the fact that he was shot dead by the CRPF.
He had three younger sisters – Zainab (10), Mehar Jan (8), and Maryam (4). Their father is a part-time tailor and owns some orchards agricultural land. Their mother Meema (35) is a housewife.
Another encounter is over and done with. There is only the din of celebration over the killing of a militant commander—-a poor physically and mentally challenged 14 years old boy. Telephones and internet across the Kashmir valley stand affected or suspended as we post this. Tears for Hazim have no place to go, not even to hide…
