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Probe into Hurriyat leader Aziz’s death
After NSA MK Narayanan said security forces were not responsible for the death of the senior Hurriyat Conference leader, it is turning into a real life “whodunit”, reports Arun Joshi.
Who killed Sheikh Abdul Aziz? After National Security Adviser MK Narayanan said security forces were not responsible for the death of the senior Hurriyat Conference leader, it is turning into a real life “whodunit”.
Narayanan, who was on a one-day visit to Srinagar on Wednesday, was told that the forces had fired in the air.
Police and intelligence agencies are probing the sequence of events that led to Aziz’s death during the “Muzaffarabad chalo” march on August 11 to find out exactly how he was killed and who fired at him. Another person — identified as Manzoor Ahmad — was also killed. “Search is on for evidence,” an official told Hindustan Times.
The pressure is now more on the government to find out who killed the Hurriyat leader, as his death triggered a chain of pro-freedom marches in Kashmir.
The separatist leadership has blamed the security forces for Aziz’s death.
“The forces fired in the air only to disperse the crowd,” said B Srinivas, IG (law and order, north Kashmir).
Aziz’s supporters took him, with a “bullet in his abdomen”, to the hospital. After he was declared “brought dead”, the body was taken to Jamia Masjid in downtown Srinagar, where there were nightlong protests. Next day, he was buried at the “martyrs’ graveyard” at the Srinagar Idgah.
In Delhi, the Home ministry clammed up on the circumstances leading to Aziz’s death. “We have no information... Investigations are continuing,” a senior ministry official said, refusing to even specify if the post-mortem report had been conducted.
