Gund Hassi Bhat, the Shia-dominated area at the outskirts of Srinagar city is in the news again. Last month, as The Kashmiriyat reported, nearly eight Shia mourners from the area were detained under UAPA in a case from Muharram last year, i.e., 2021. One of the detainees, the 27-year-old son Mohammed Yaseen Rather, got engaged within the premises of the jail he’s been detained at, in the presence of a couple of male members from the family.
This Friday, at around 4:30 p.m., unprecedented crowd gathered outside Ali Mohammed Mir’s house at Gund Hassi Bhat, Srinagar district of central Kashmir, creating panic among the family members. Shabir Ali, one of the inmates went out to check what the matter was. He was told that “something had happened to Shabar, his younger brother.”
People started flocking the courtyard of their house , which started appearing like a mourning ground. Women could be heard wailing and screaming from the house.
“It was ‘Qayamat’ (Doomsday) for the family,” Shabir said. “We could not believe it for a while but then we were shown some photographs. After that, I felt motionless and couldn’t utter a word. I do not recall what happened next,” he said.
Shabir said that he spoke to his younger brother at around 3:00 p.m., on Friday, and Shabar had promised over the call that he would be home in some time.
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“I will be home soon. Please manage everything at home. I am out with my friends to play a cricket match.” Shabir asked his 17-year-old sibling to return in time for Iftaar since he was fasting. Shabir also reminded him that the two of them had to visit the local Imam Bargah after evening prayers.
The 17-year-old Shabar Ali did return, but breathless and motionless, to be laid to rest by the family at his native graveyard in Srinagar city in the dark of the night.
Jumped into ‘deep waters’ in order to save himself
In Shabar’s locality people were preparing for the first night of Laylat ul Qadr and the martyrdom of Imam Ali (A.S), when the shocking news emerged from the nearby Magam locality of Budgam.
Reportedly, on Friday afternoon, the local youth held a protest at Magam, Budgam, during which several youths pelted stones at the Government force personnel in the area. The forces retaliated by aerial firing and then chased the youth away.
One youth drowned in the Sukhnag Nallah which runs through the native village of Mohammed Yousuf Dar alias Kantroo, a militant commander killed in a 40-hour-long Baramulla encounter that ended on Friday afternoon. Locals soon rushed to the spot and fished out the body. The drowned youth was identified as Shabar Ali of Gund Hassi Bhat.
Official sources told The Kashmiriyat that minor protests had erupted in the Magam area of Budgam after Friday prayers during which a small group of youth hurled stones at force personnel. The force personnel deployed there chased the youth away.
While the Police were chasing these youths away, one of the youths drowned in the Sukhnag Nallah of Budgam. “His body has been retrieved from the Nallah,” they said.
The incident occurred in the native village of slain LeT militant commander Yousuf Kantroo who was killed in the encounter at Baramulla on Thursday.
“We are not aware of what exactly happened there. But Shabar was in the area to play cricket with his friends. Nobody has told us anything,” Shabir told The Kashmiriyat. All Shabir has heard as of now is that a total of seven youth had jumped as the Police chased the protesting youth. Shabar, too, ran in order to save his life as they were in the nearby playfield. “He didn’t know how to swim, and he drowned,” Shabir said.
Locals The Kashmiriyat spoke to said that the Police fired tear smoke canisters at the protesters that triggered panic in the entire area and the youth around the road ran for cover. “Many youth jumped in the river and soon a news spread that one of the youth did not actually come out of the river. People started searches inside the water body and after a search of nearly half an hour, at around 5 45 PM, the body of Shabar Ali was fished out,” they said.
Police in its official statement confirming the death said, “It was reliably learned that one Shabar Ali Mir, age about 17 yrs Son of Ali Mohammed Mir resident of Gund Hassi Bhat, has drowned in Suknag Nalla at Kawoosa. The dead body was fished out from the stream by the locals around 18 00 hours and was taken to his native place for last rites. Police Budgam is enquiring into the circumstances which led to the drowning of the individual.”
Shabir says that the family might never come to terms with the reality. “Everyone in the family is in a state of mourning. He was the youngest among us,” he says, adding, “He was a little kid, yet. He was there with us in the morning and then in the evening, he was not. It’s hard for us to believe that he’s no more.”