Militants pumped five bullets into a youth and shot him dead inside a mosque in Kashmir Valley after chasing him on suspicion of being an informer of security forces.
The attack on 18-year-old Suhail Ahmad Sofi inside the mosque in Sopore area of Baramulla district last night where a congregation had assembled for night prayers is suspected to have been carried out by militants belonging to Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT). Sofi died on the spot, police said.
The incident led Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah to lash out at netizens who maintained silence over the killing but had showed “outrage” against killing of a youth in firing by security forces last week.
“Militants chase an 18-year-old boy in to a mosque and shoot him. Imagine the outrage if this had been done by security forces,” Abdullah wrote on micro-blogging site Twitter.
The Chief Minister said the “hypocrisy” was evident from the reactions on his Twitter timeline to the killing of a youth by CRPF personnel last week and lack of any reaction to Sofi’s killing.
“Want to see the hypocrisy of selective outrage? Compare reactions on my TL (timeline) today to those exactly a week ago,” he added.
Sofi was sitting with another local youth in the compound of the mosque at Doabgah in Sopore last night when militants opened fire on him but he managed to escape from the spot and took refuge inside the Hamaam (heating fireplace) of the religious place, Superintendent of Police Sopore Imtiyaz Hussain said.
He said one militant entered the mosque, where a congregation had assembled and pumped five bullets into Sofi, who died on the spot.
Sofi, a school dropout, was killed on the suspicion of being an informer of the security forces, Hussain said.
The Grand Mufti of Jammu and Kashmir Mufti Bashiruddin Ahmad condemned the incident, saying Islam does not allow killing of innocent people, especially inside the mosque. “We don’t know yet whether he was an informer or not – the clues we got from the scene indicate that the killing was handiwork of LeT militants,” Hussain said.
He said Fahdullah, a top commander of LeT and who hails from Pakistan, was suspected to be behind Sofi’s killing.
“He was not physically present at the scene but he was scene in the area some time before the incident,” the officer added.
Sofi is survived by his parents, a brother, who is studying in seventh standard and elder sister who has completed graduation. He was buried at his ancestral graveyard
this morning.
According to local residents, the deceased was actively taking part in sports events organized by police and army and also encouraged other youth of his area to participate in these activities. The sports events had helped in keeping youth away from disruptive activities after 2010 summer agitation in the Valley.
They believe that this enthusiasm to channelize his energy and that of his forays into constructive activities could have been the reason for his killing.
While the separatist groups so far have maintained silence over the killing, the Grand Mufti said Islam does not allow killing of innocent people, especially inside the mosque.
“A mosque is house of Allah and anyone who enters house of Allah is safe. The mosques cannot be turned into killing fields,” the Mufti said.
The Mufti said shedding the blood of innocent people is un-Islamic.
“The Holy Quran is very clear that if someone sheds blood of one innocent, he has killed the humanity.”
Omar said he was willing to accept the anger directed against the government for excesses by the security forces only from those who are willing to condemn the killings by militants as well.
“I can accept the anger directed against us for excesses by security forces but only from people willing to condemn such killings,” he said.
——PTI