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My pillar of support is gone, says slain Kashmiri actor Amreen Bhat’s father
Three LeT terrorists killed Kashmiri actor Amreen Bhat at her home in Jammu and Kashmir’s Budgam on Wednesday. Amreen had started appearing in TV on Doordarshan dramas and musicals after she quit school in Class 10
Hushroo village, Budgam : Like the two columns supporting the front of their two-storey modest house deep inside the Chadoora tehsil of central Kashmir, Amreen Bhat was the main pillar of support for the Bhat family, her ailing father and her elder sister’s family.
Though younger among the two sisters, Amreen, a TV artist and prominent YouTuber, was the one who not only took care of the kitchen of the house since her mother died 14 years back but also made sure to earn enough to keep the ration and the medicines coming.
She had divorced her husband just one-and-a-half years after her marriage in 2012 and was living with her father, who suffers from asthma, and her elder sister, brother-in-law, who occasionally does labour work and also sits on a village shop, and their two children.
“This home was flourishing because of her. She would take care of our every need. She was my pillar of support. Now that is gone. It is all over for me,” said Bhat’s father, Khazir Mohammad, a paddy farmer, as his eyes overwhelmed with tears.
“When her mother died, she took all the burden of the house. I have no son and she took all the responsibility. I can no longer work now,” said Mohammad, who, 62.
Amreen, in her 30s, was killed when two strangers, one with a hidden pistol, entered their courtyard and asked her 10-year-old nephew to call her Massi (aunt).
As she went out on the verandah, the younger of the two men wanted her to come with them as they “wanted to shoot a video”.
“She told them that she does not work with strangers and asked for their address. The men hesitated and the younger man brought out a pistol and shot her in the neck. The child was with her and he was also hit in the arm,” said Mohammad, who was shocked as his elder daughter, who was milking the cow, came rushing in saying ‘Amreen is killed’.
“Despite being hit, Amreen was so courageous that she gathered herself and entered her room where she collapsed in a pool of blood,” he said.
Police said that three terrorists of the proscribed outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba were involved in the incident.
The family and the relatives are in shock and there is a strange silence in her neighbourhood.
Khazir Mohammad is still trying to figure out why she was killed. He said that nobody ever objected to her working in these videos. “I would have happily told her to quit if there was any threat or anything. For the past 15 years, she has been doing this and nobody has killed her in these years. Why now? I think it is somebody’s anger or mischief,” he said.
On Thursday, the courtyard was filled with scores of media persons as Khazir Mohammad kept going to and fro from his house’s verandah to the small tent erected in the courtyard where a small group of his relatives was mourning.
“We have to keep patience. This is a test from the Almighty,” Mohammad told an elderly woman as she burst into tears and held his hands.
A cousin of Amreen said that she would help everybody. “She would earn for her father and her sister’s children. Killing her was so wrong. We never thought that this would happen to her. If she had a brother, there was a possibility that she would not have left home to earn. She was forced to work for her ill father,” said Shameema, a cousin of Amreen.
Amreen started appearing in TV on Doordarshan dramas and musicals after she quit school in Class 10 and also started helping her ailing mother who died in 2008.
“Her mother became ill when she was very young. They had no major source of income; she started working in TV and also recording videos. She was beautiful and had a sweet voice,” said a cousin of Amreen’s mother.
As the percolation and influence of social media increased in the Valley in the past some years, she started dabbling with reel videos, Kashmiri songs, fun-based dramas, remixes and sometimes even lip-syncing songs on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. In most of the videos her head would be covered.
Owing to the success of her songs and videos, she started her own YouTube channel a few months back and attracted over 15,000 subscribers. On Instagram, she had over 25,000 followers. While the majority of the responses were encouraging, she would also attract some abusive comments targeting her work owing to her Muslim identity.
“If somebody had only given us a hint (tell us to stop her), I would have forced her to leave this work. Still, I told her many times to stop doing these videos but she told me that she is doing nothing wrong. She would not sing at weddings but only would go for shooting videos and reels which she would upload then on YouTube and Instagram. Those making the videos would also upload the videos,” Mohammad said.
“We used to be in Jammu for six months during winters owing to my chest health and that was possible only because of her. She used to do these videos outside like Delhi and Dehradun. A few months ago, she started her own YouTube channel which was running well,” he said.
“She was the one running our house. She would earn and pay for the rent in Jammu. Now everything is gone,” he said.
