Jammu Erupts in Protests After Gujjar Youth Killed by Police Over Drug Allegations
Srinagar: A young tribal man was shot dead by police today, July 25, triggering massive protests in Jammu. His family and a member of the Jammu and Kashmir legislative assembly are among those who have alleged that he was killed in cold blood.
This is the fifth death this year in Jammu and Kashmir of members of the tribal Gujjar community in which the aggrieved families have alleged foul-play while the police and civilian authorities have sought to reject the allegations.
The victim, identified as Mohammad Parvez, was a 21-year-old resident of Nikki Tawi area of Jammu. He suffered critical injuries during a shootout, police says, following which he was rushed by police to Government Medical College Jammu (GMC), “He was brought dead at the hospital,” a senior official at GMC said, requesting anonymity.
According to Parvez’s family, he left home between 3 and 4 pm on July 24 along with his brother-in-law to fetch medicines for the latter’s mother when they saw a group of four to five men in civil clothing near the Surre Chak area of Phallian Mandal. The area falls under the jurisdiction of the Satwari police station.
A family member, who requested not to be named, said that the two initially thought that the men were members of local ‘gau rakshak (cow protector)’ outfits. The family member said that Parvez and his brother-in-law were suspicious that they would be attacked by the group and tried to run from the area.
Police, through sources, have claimed that the men were part of a special team which had conducted raids to nab drug peddlers across Jammu district. The group came under “heavy stone pelting,” police sources claimed – ostensibly from Parvez and his brother-in-law. The source added that thus under attack, police personnel fired “a few rounds in retaliation,” when a bullet hit Ahmed.
Parvez’s family member says that while the brother-in-law managed to escape, Parvez suffered a bullet injury. “His brother-in-law could hear the gunshots in the background while he was fleeing but he didn’t dare to stop and kept running,” he said.
In a statement, Jammu district police said – that a police team was “chasing suspected drug pedlars (sic)” who were “fired upon” and “in cross-firing, one unknown person got injured and has been shifted to GMC Jammu”. It said that “further investigation” in the case was underway. Details of “cross-firing” are unclear as the police have not revealed injuries among their ranks, if any.
Outrage
The tribal Gujjar community has come under a spate of attacks by members of suspected Hindutva groups in Jammu region after the erstwhile state was bifurcated and demoted into a Union territory in 2019.
As the news of the killing spread, a massive protest was held by the family, which includes five brothers and six sisters, outside the GMC Jammu, where the deceased was brought by the police.
Parvez was the youngest among 12 siblings and he had gotten married recently.
Videos from the scene of the protest outside the GMC Jammu showed aggrieved family members crying profusely while demanding justice for Parvez, amid heavy presence of police and paramilitary personnel.
“If a Gujjar walks on the road, can the police shoot him just like that?” Mohammad Farooq, brother of the deceased, said. “Let the police come and shoot us all, if even one of us is found to have been named in any FIR. We are six brothers and we work as daily labourers. He was innocent.”
Till this report was filed, the family had refused to accept Parvez’s body which was lying at the mortuary of GMC Jammu. Reports said that hundreds of people including women gathered at the residence of the deceased to share the family’s grief.
“Punish the culprits. Why did they shoot him? My poor brother … he worked as daily wage worker. He was not a criminal. It hasn’t been even two months since we married him. What was his crime? I want my brother back. I don’t want anything else,” one of Parvez’s sisters told local media today.
MLA speaks out
Aam Aadmi Party leader and MLA Doda, Mehraj Malik alleged that Parvez was killed in cold blood by the police.
“Fake Encounter by J&K police. Even if he was a drug smuggler who gave Police the right to kill? Are we now living under a system where police act as judge, jury, and executioner? Is this the ‘New India’ and new ‘law and order’ under the LG where bullets replace trials, and action is taken against poor only,” Malik said in a post on Facebook.
Tribal activist Talib Hussain denied allegations that Parvez was involved in drug peddling, “He has never faced any criminal charges. There is no First Information Report against him. If he was wanted in any drug case, police should have arrested and hanged him if found guilty. Why did they kill him? It’s a fake encounter”.
Alleging that the police was working on the direction of a senior Bhartiya Janta Party leader from Jammu, Hussain said that the deceased was targeted under a broader campaign against the Gujjars in the Union territory.
“Gujjars are being killed in the name of cattle smuggling and drug smuggling. We have stayed silent in the past but this case needs to be investigated. If Parvez was a smuggler, the police should have booked him. No authority allows them to kill him like this. Do they want to turn J&K into Uttar Pradesh,” Hussain said.
On April 25 this year, police said that an alleged overground worker of militants identified as Altaf Hussain Lali was killed in a gun battle with militants in Bandipora district of north Kashmir. However the family of the young Gujjar man alleged that Lali was detained by police and killed in a staged encounter.
In March this year, the bodies of three Gujjar youth who had gone to attend a wedding were recovered from the banks of Vishaw river in south Kashmir’s Kulgam district. Their families alleged foul-play with the father of one of the victims claiming that his son’s body bore torture marks.
However, the police have said that the victims died by drowning.
A tribal youth from Kathua district of Jammu died by suicide allegedly after facing torture in police custody, prompting the J&K administration ordered a magisterial probe on 6 February this year. The fate of the inquiry remains unknown.
