‘Selective outrage’ to militants killing teen makes Omar angry

A day after a youth was killed by suspected militants in north Kashmir’s Sopore, chief minister Omar Abdullah accused the valley’s protesters of hypocrisy and “selective outrage”. HT reports.

A day after a youth was killed by suspected militants in north Kashmir’s Sopore, chief minister Omar Abdullah accused the valley’s protesters of hypocrisy and “selective outrage”.

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“Militants chase an 18-year-old boy into a mosque and shoot him. Imagine the outrage if this had been done by security forces,” Abdullah tweeted under the hashtag “hypocrisy”.

“Want to see the hypocrisy of selective outrage? Compare reactions on my TL (timeline) today to those exactly a week ago,” he added.

In an oblique reference to opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), he further wrote, “Had this incident taken place at the hands of security forces, these members would have pulled the mikes, broken the tables and created hue and cry in the assembly”.

On Tuesday evening, Suhail Ahmad Sofi, a higher secondary student living in Sopore’s Doabgah village, 55 km from Srinagar, was killed.

“Sofi was sitting with another youth near a local mosque when unknown militants opened fire at him. He ran towards the mosque and hid there. But one militant gave chase and entering the mosque, pumped five bullets into him,” said Sopore superintendent of police Imtiyaz Hussain.

Locals said Sofi was suspected to be a police informer which could have been a reason for the murder. “He was innocent and very young,” said Sofi’s grief-stricken mother.