Baramulla: A civilian from HMT area of Srinagar was killed allegedly in a militant attack in which a CRPF man was killed and three CRPF personnel were injured in Sopore on Wednesday morning.
Police said that a team of CRPF 179 Battalion came under a militant attack on Wednesday morning near Model Town “C” Sopore on the Sopore-Kupwara road. In this attack, officials said, one CRPF man and a civilian were killed on the spot while three CRPF personnel were injured. The injured CRPF personnel were shifted to 92 base army hospital Srinagar for treatment.
The slain CRPF man was identified as Dipchand Verma, while the injured were identified as Constable Bhoya Rajesh, Constable Deepak Patil, and Nilesh Chawde.
The slain civilian was identified as Bashir Ahmad Khan, son of Gulam Mohammad Khan, a resident of HMT Srinagar.
Soon after the attack, teams of police, CRPF, and army reached the spot and launched a hunt to nab the militants. The forces sealed all the entry and exit points of the area and launched a massive search operation. However, the militants managed to escape from the area. The search operation continued throughout the day.
A police officer said that when police reached the spot they were shocked to see a little boy sitting upon the dead body and crying. The Station House Officer (SHO) Sopore picked up the boy and shifted him inside the police vehicle. Later it was known that the boy was the grandson of the deceased person and they were going somewhere when they came under cross-fire between the militants and paramilitary forces.
Irshad Ahmad, a resident of Model Town C, told Kashmir Reader that he heard the firing of guns near his house that made him and his family take cover inside their home. He said that some bullets hit the roof of his house.
“After the firing stopped we saw a child on the road near a dead body and some CRPF men running about, giving directions to one another. We can’t say how the civilian got killed but we saw a toddler on the middle of the road near a body and CRPF men taking positions,” Ahmad said.
Family members of the slain Bashir Ahmad Khan have alleged that Khan was dragged out from his car by CRPF men and then killed in cold blood. A video clip went viral on social media sites in which the relatives of Khan can be heard saying, “He left his home early in the morning and went to Sopore for his personal work. He was on his way when militants attacked the CRPF party. Other CRPF men, as per our sources, dragged him out of his car and then killed him on the road.”
The police in the afternoon issued a press release which read, “Today on 01 July 2020 at about 07:30 hours Militants fired indiscriminately on a joint naka party of CRPF/ Police at Bismillah Colony Model Town Sopore in which four CRPF personnel got seriously injured and one among them while being evacuated to hospital succumbed to injuries. In the incident one civilian identified as Bashir Ahmad Khan also got killed by the bullets fired by militants.
The news surfaced on some social networking sites that the civilian was brought down and killed is totally baseless and is far beyond the facts. Sopore Police refutes and denies the news and legal action shall be initiated against the false reports and rumours.”
The CRPF also issued a statement detailing the events.
“Militants hiding in the attic of a nearby mosque started firing indiscriminately on the troops resulting in injuries to four CRPF personnel,” it said.
“A civilian vehicle which was coming from Sopore and going towards Kupwara was caught in the firing range of terrorists. An old man who was driving the vehicle stopped the car and got down from the vehicle to move away to a safe spot but got killed by terrorists firing,” it added.
Later, a young boy was rescued by forces personnel who had taken positions nearby.
Former chief minister Omar Abdullah said every incident becomes a propaganda tool in the bloody violence in Kashmir .
A three year old toddler has to have his misery broadcast to the whole world to drive home the ‘we good they bad’ message. We would have got the point without his misery being filmed and shared so please don’t,” he said on Twitter.
“We would have expected no less from the men in uniform than to rescue the young boy and for that they have our gratitude but we would expect better than for them to film & use a three year old’s pain the way it’s being done today,” Abdullah added.
Inspector General of Police Kashmir Vijay Kumar denied that forces were involved in killing of the civilian.
“When CRPF men were deboarding from the vehicle to be part of the joint ‘’naka’’ party at Model Town, two militants hiding in the mosque started firing. One CRPF trooper was killed and three others injured. A civilian, hit by bullets, died later,” he said.
“There was no retaliation from the security forces. Militants left behind one full magazine and another one from which 30 bullets had been used at the mosque,” the IGP said while denying the accusations of slain civilian Bashir Ahmed Khan’’s family that he was shot dead by security forces after being pulled out of his vehicle.
“The video message circulated on the social media by the son and daughter of the slain man is baseless. They have levelled allegations under militant threats,” Kumar said.
“I want to ask whether they were present at the spot? Did they themselves see who had fired? They circulated video messages blaming the forces for killing their father from Srinagar, which is baseless.”
He said if there was any eyewitness to the killing, they should come forward and the police would act accordingly. “The search in the area is on to arrest the attackers. We have not called off the search operation,” the IGP said.

Mushtaq Ahamd