by Saif Ullah Bashir
SRINAGAR: Hours after the audio of footballer turned militant, Amir Siraj talking to his father went viral on social media, his family denied the conversation and terming the audio “fake”.
The family claimed they have not spoken to Siraj ever since he went missing a couple of months earlier. In a video the family released, they claim they have not talked to him for the last “six months”.
Terming the audio as “fake” and “baseless”, the family said, “Siraj used to address his father as Abu Ji and not Abba as the voice in the audio addresses him. Also, he used to call his mother as Mummy and not Boba.”
Amir Siraj, a footballer turned militant from north Kashmir’s Sopore area was killed in a gunfight with army and the police along with a Pakistani militant in Wanigam Payeen area of north Kashmir’s Baramulla district on December 24. Siraj was missing since July this year.
Earlier, in audio, a person can be heard saying that “forces” gave him multiple offers to “surrender but his associates threatened to wipe out his whole family” if he attempted to surrender. In the audio, the person has called militancy a “wrong path”.
Earlier, the Jammu and Kashmir police in a statement had said that two Jasih-e-Muhammad militants killed were identified as Abrar alias Langoo, a Pakistani resident and other a local militant identified as Amir Siraj, a resident of Sopore.
Siraj’s uncle said, “The viral audio is completely fake and voice is not of Amir, neither of his father Sirajudin’s. This is a complete a lie.”
Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Sopore, Javaid Iqbal said, “We are verifying the authenticity of the viral audio.”
The allegation that the audio was circulated by Jammu and Kashmir Police was also refuted by SSP Sopore.
