Militants killed civilian, claims top CRPF officer

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, July 2

Amid the controversy over the death of 65-year-old civilian Bashir Ahmed Khan in Sopore yesterday, J&K’s Special Director General, CRPF, Zulfiqar Hassan, said on Thursday that all “technical details” proved that the militants were behind his killing.

The top-most CRPF officer in J&K said he was killed by a bullet of the militants. I think some people have tried to give it a spin that the CRPF took him out of the vehicle and shot him. This is totally untrue. After examining a lot of technical details, including cameras, we are very confident of what happened. The civilian was killed by the militants firing from the mosque, Hassan said.

He was talking to reporters on the sidelines of the wreath-laying ceremony of the CRPF man who was also killed in the militant attack on Wednesday morning.

Bashir Ahmed Khan was accompanied by his grandson who survived the attack. Meanwhile, soon after the shooting, the Khan’s family alleged that the CRPF shot him dead in cold blood.

Hassan said while the firing was going on, the civilian, who came in a car, got into the melee.

“Unfortunately, when he was getting down and trying to take the child out of the car, he was shot on the back by a militant bullet from the mosque. We have seen the angle of the fire. We are very clear technically that this is the bullet of the militant,” he said, adding there was no question of the CRPF being involved in this.

Hasaan said the repeated use of mosques by militants to target forces was highly reprehensible.

Meanwhile, a day after the killing, Khan’s family maintained that he was killed by CRPF and they have not been tutored by anyone to blame forces for the civilian killing.

“How can we be taught to say such things? The fact is that he was killed in cold blood,” Khan’s son Suhail said.

Khan’s wife is a former police official who retired as an SHO.