SRINAGAR: In occupied Kashmir, Indian armed forces’ personnel attacked a locality in south Kashmir’s Bijbehara town – where a prominent author-journalist lives with his parents – for his article in which he exposed the puppet Chief Minister, Mehbooba Mufti’s doublespeak.
The author, Murtaza Shibli, in a statement said that the attack was carried out as an act of revenge for his article. “A day after I published an article dissecting (puppet) Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti’s display of crocodile tears for the families of those slain by her own forces, an unruly group of Police and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) attacked our locality,” Shibli wrote on his facebook page. The article, exposing Mufti’s Janis-faced character, was published in the leading Srinagar daily, Kashmir Reader, and The News (Pakistan).
“Few hours after my story was published, I heard from some sources that the local unit of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) headed by Mufti was enraged and wanted revenge. Mufti, like her father, is very concerned about her public image and has invested millions to circulate falsehoods and manipulations through an army of media consultants, PDP-affiliated newspapers and journalists,” he added.
“Last evening, when I went for a usual stroll down the main road and was half way towards the old-town, several of my well-wishers and friends advised me to go home early as PDP was planning to attack me, because my expose of Mehbooba Mufti had caused them a deep embarrassment. I was even told by a source that Mufti’s cousin and a provincial party leader, Sajjad Mufti, had promised a tough action against me.”
“Around 5:30, a batch of police and CRPF descended upon the Sicop Mohalla, Bijbehara. Akin to the old cowboy movies, they came running like raiders, making howling noises to cause fear and throwing around high-pitched tirades of all sorts of profanities to demoralise womenfolk. They stayed in and solely targeted our locality like total psychopaths,” he added.
The uniformed men attacked several houses, breaking windowpanes and destroying properties. The worst damage was caused to author’s parental house where he currently stayed. For almost half an hour, the police-CRPF combine targeted houses with stones and batons, destroying windows, window frames causing damage worth lacks of rupees.
During the siege that continued for almost three hours, the unruly soldiers attacked many other houses causing some damage and frightening about 300 people, including women and children. They also smashed granite sheets worth several lakhs of rupees of a local businessman, Showkat Ahmed Wani.
