Shopian (Jammu and Kashmir): Seven-year-old Mehrun Nissa alternates glances on her father's cellphone and the rubble of a house that was her home till yesterday. A few moments earlier she held her father's finger to descend the staircase of the devastated home little knowing that this would be her last accompaniment with her father.
During the intervening night of June 8 and 9, Indian Army and Jammu and Kashmir police forces cordoned off Nissa's home at Pinjora village, 1.5 kilometres away from south Kashmir's Shopian district headquarters. Nissa was away with her family at her maternal home.
Soon after the house was encircled, an exchange of fire took place as a group of four Hizbul Mujahideen militants, led by Hizbul Mujahideen's district commander' Umar Dhobi, a native of the same village, was holed up in the house. At the crack of dawn, the security forces targeted the house with a barrage of bullets and mortar shells.
In a few hours, the house crumbled and all militants hiding inside got killed.
Read: J-K: 4 terrorists killed in Shopian, operation underway
Few hours after the gun-battle, Nissa's family could reach the encounter site after the cordon was removed and she and her family were allowed to see their devastated home. With stoic eyes, her father, 32-year-old Tariq Ahmad Paul, was taking around at the encounter site when ETV Bharat reporter, Shahid Tak captured him on camera detailing about how he built the house after toiling for 12 years was razed to rubble in a matter of hours.
But that was not the end of the story. Three hours after Paul spoke to ETV Bharat, unidentified gunmen (suspected militants) appeared in the village and called out for him. Villagers say that the gunmen took him towards the orchards in the vicinity of the village.
On the next morning, his body was found. No bullet was fired but villagers say there were torture marks on his body. His woollen cloak (pheran) and belt were found near the body.
Nobody knows who killed Paul just a day after his house was razed to cinders in a gun-battle.
Paul's story reflects the deep layers of Kashmir conflict where common people are consumed in a complex security situation where death can knock on anybody any moment. Mehrun Nissa and her younger sister lost her doting father and the dwelling in a matter of a few hours. Their young mother is clueless as to what befell on her family that was struggling to make the two ends meet.
