Civilian injured in explosion at Sirhama gunfight site dies

Civilian injured in explosion at Sirhama gunfight site dies

34-year-old leaves behind two little daughters

Anantnag: A 34-year-old man who was among four civilians injured in an explosion at a gunfight site in Sirhama area of Anantnag district on Friday, succumbed to his injuries at a Srinagar hospital on Monday, leaving behind two little daughters – a toddler and an infant – besides his wife and ailing father.
Yaseen Ahmad Rather, son of Muhammad Maqbool Rather, had stayed inside his house all night when the gunfight began a couple of hundred meters away on Thursday night, near the local bus stand in Sirhama.
By morning, the house where the militants were holed up was blown apart with explosives by the government forces and both the militants were killed. Soon after, when government forces left, hundreds of people thronged the site and Yaseen was one among them.
“As they were standing over the rubble, some unexploded device from last night’s gunfight exploded. As everyone ran for cover, four men, one of them Yaseen, were injured,” a local who was present at the time of the explosion said.
He said that the four of them were ferried to Sub-District Hospital (SDH) Bijbehara, from where Yaseen and another person were shifted to Srinagar for specialised treatment. “Yaseen lost his battle this morning in Srinagar,” he said.
Yaseen’s body was brought to Sirhama early Monday morning and hundreds of people attended his funeral. He was laid to rest at his ancestral graveyard.
A fruit grower by profession, Yaseen was described by his neighbours and friends as a deeply religious person and a humble soul.
“His family has been devastated. He has two daughters, one aged 2 years and the other just 9 months. His daughters do not even know what has befallen them,” a relative of the family told Kashmir Reader.
The family has lost their sole breadwinner as well. In recent years, many civilians have been killed in explosions at encounter sites, especially in south Kashmir. On October 21, 2018, as many as seven civilians were killed in an explosion at a gunfight site in Laroo village on the outskirts of Kulgam town.
Following that incident, government forces have begun to put up banners asking people not to venture near the site of the gunfight. However, people continue to throng to such sites, regardless of the advisories and the fatal mishaps that keep happening.

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