by Faiqa Masoodi
SRINAGAR: It is a universal prayer among Muslims that when they die, they should be able to recite the Kalima –‘There is no God but Allah, Muhammad is the messenger of Allah’. On Sunday morning something unprecedented happened.
Mohammad Shafi Mir, 72, a police officer, who had hung his boots somewhere in 2012, was reciting Azaan, a Muslim call for prayers for pre-dawn Fajr Nimaaz. Soon after he recited the line ‘I bear witness that there is no god except the One God’, twice, he was shot dead. Since the call for prayers was being blown from the loudspeaker, the entire village listened to the unusual broadcast from the mosque. He could not conclude the Azan.
As the call for prayers stopped there and then, people were confused. One resident said he felt there was some problem with the loudspeaker as it was repaired recently. Most of them admitted listening to the sound of a thud, indicating a fire. Then, one of his relatives said, he called for help and people heard it as the loudspeaker was on.
By then, many people were on their way to the mosque for prayers and they hurried up. “There was a shot but we did not know it was gunfire,” Mohammad Iqbal, one of the residents who reached the spot within minutes told reporters. Residents said they mistook his collapse as part of chakar, or a possible heart attack. They drove him to the Government Medical College, Baramulla, almost 15 km away, and it took some time to understand that he had four wounds on his back.
Abdul Karim Mir, his brother told reporters it took them almost 15 minutes to realise that something serious had happened because militancy is something that this village is not accustomed to. “After some 10-15 minutes, my daughter-in-law heard the sound of wailing in the neighbourhood,” Karim was quoted saying. “I saw blood in the mosque. I thought he had collapsed and suffered a brain haemorrhage because of which blood smeared the floor. But when I reached the hospital, I learnt that he was shot.”
Mir had breathed his last while being transported from his Upper Gantmulla home to the hospital. It is now being said that he had received pellets from a vintage 12. bore rifle from behind and two had reportedly hit his two crucial organs – lungs and heart. The assailants believed to be militants, had broken the Masjid windowpane near the staircase where Mir was calling for prayers.
The other interesting facet of the killing is that this was the first ever happening in the village in which a firearm was involved. No such thing has happened in the village since 1989 when militancy broke out.
In Kashmir, for over three decades now, it is not uncommon for people to be assassinated while coming out of the mosque after prayers or even going for prayers. This is, however, one of the rare happenings in which a man was killed well within the mosque and that too while calling people for prayers.
A Gentleman
After he graduated from Kashmir, Mir went for a bachelor’s in law from Lucknow University. After his return, he practised law for a year or so.
In 1982-83, Abdul Wadoud, a lawyer and one of his relatives said, he was appointed as a Sub Inspector in Jammu and Kashmir Police. His initial posting was in Baramulla and then he was elevated to the position of SHO Panzla. Then militancy broke out, Wadoud said, and he was shifted to the Jammu and Kashmir Vigilance Organisation where he served for a long time. In 2012, he retired as Commandant of the IRP-12 battalion that was deployed somewhere in Awantipore.
“One thing, I knew and was always in appreciation of, was, that he never gave up prayers,” Wadoud said. “He had the reputation of being honest and upright.”
After his retirement, Mir would spend most of his time locally and managing his possessions properly.
A resident said the Mohalla in which Mir lived had an old mosque and it was dismantled to pave the way for a new one. “Mir Sahab played a key role in it,” he said. “After the mosque was ready, he retained the status of being the Muezzin (the man who calls for prayers) and was very punctual in that.” It was during the recitation of Azan that he was shot dead.
Mir is survived by his widow, a daughter and two sons. One of his sons is a businessman and another is in service.
“He had no issues in his village and no disputes with anybody,” one resident said. His funeral was attended by the entire belt.
Mir like many of his retired colleagues in civil and police administration had a security cover. His security was withdrawn along with 176 others in 2017.
Investigations
“Terrorists fired upon Shri Mohd Shafi, a retired police officer, at Gantmulla, Sheeri Baramulla, while praying ‘azaan’ in the mosque and succumbed to injuries,” the Kashmir Zone police said in a post on X.
Soon, the police have started investigating the sensational assassination. This is perhaps the first rare killing in which the assailants have used a .12-bore rifle. Many families own hunting guns in the locality. During the house-to-house searches, the police have seized many such guns and many others have handed over their licensed guns to the police for investigations voluntarily, reports reaching from the area said.
A report in a Srinagar newspaper said so far 37 12-bore guns have been seized and sent for necessary investigations. Top police officers in Kashmir said they are investigating the murder from all angles. Though residents said there is no animosity angle as the slain officer was very popular, the investigators must probe and expose the killers.
Though the post-mortem report is yet to be ready, some officials who were part of the autopsy told reporters that he had been hit from the backside “in the left scapular region due to which his left lung and vasculature of the heart” were damaged. Doctors also said Mir had six pellet injuries. Internal bleeding is what eventually killed Mir. The FSL team also reached the spot and has already collected the splinter and glass samples from the mosque.
Condemnations
So far, as is the routine, no militant group staked the claim for the assassination. “Pained beyond words on the dastardly terrorist attack on a retired police officer, Mohammad Shafi Mir while he was giving a call for prayer in the mosque,” Manoj Sinha, Jammu and Kashmir Lt Governor wrote on micro-blogging site, X. “Cowards responsible for this barbaric act will not be spared. My condolences to the bereaved family in this hour of grief”.
Former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir and President of the People’s Democratic Party issued a series of statements. “The situation remains grim in Jammu and Kashmir contradicting the government’s narrative,” she said. “One doesn’t know what to condemn more. Killing of five army jawans who laid their lives in the line of their duty or civilians tortured to death in the most barbaric way by those supposed to protect us from the enemy? Every life in J&K is in peril & GOI wants to brush everything under the carpet only because the ground reality will puncture their fake narrative. How long will this go on before the country wakes up?”
“Condemning such heinous acts unequivocally, they affirm that violence can never be tolerated in any form,” the NC president Dr Farooq Abdullah said.
“Shame on those people who still feel the killers are carrying out Jihad,” Apni Party president Altaf Bukhari said. “Killers are killers irrespective of which faith they belong. And we as a society need to rise against such killings.”
“The sons of the devil can’t even tolerate Azaan as Muhammad Shafi, the retired SSP was killed while giving ‘aazan’ in a masjid,” BJP state spokesman Altaf Thakur said. “Terror and terrorists have no religion.”
