by Masood Hussain
SRINAGAR: Kashmir’s superstitious people had presented hundreds of axes to their apparently mentally compromised Peer, who killed a 72-year-old woman by hitting her head thrice with one of the hatchets. Police have arrested the man and his immediate deputy as the family is battling “followers” from visiting the site of the ‘revered’ “faith healer”.
Ghulam Rasool Sofi, alias Las Bub, has been in a compromised mind for a long time. His status of being Mout and Darvesh led people to visit him for faith healing in Maidan-e-Chogal village. Gradually he started growing a flowing beard and hardly had a haircut. His routine response would be to beat his followers, the Mureed, with his stick and sometimes with an axe, which he would routinely carry with him.
“He had hit many people in the past and it would get some injury,” one of Sofi’s relatives said. “Some eight people were hit by the axe in many years.”
Narrating the details, Aijaz, a grandson of Peer’s sister, said the unfortunate victim, Ateeqa, a resident of Magam, approached in the afternoon on April 26, Friday, and was asked to avoid visiting Sofi as he was angry. She somehow managed to get up and was hit. “Initially when she went to his area, he called her names and told her to go but she stayed put and he initially hit her with the stick,” one resident said. “Later when she did not move, he hit her thrice with an axe.”
Ateeqa was quickly taken to the associated hospital GMC Handwara, where the doctors referred her to Srinagar. As they reached Srinagar, she was declared brought dead.
The same lady, another resident said, was earlier beaten by him twice. “It was her third hit but was very tragic,” he said.
In anger, the relatives and the neighbours said, he would routinely hit people. He would always carry a small axe with him. “But he would hit people when he was teaz,” one neighbour said. Taez is a Kashmir word that means extreme anger, in which one would be unable to be rational and normal or would get violent.
“He had a love for axes and would ask his people to get them one,” one neighbour said. “The people would get him knives, scissors, Wazwaan and clothes.” The family has a room full of axes, scissors, knives, daggers, shoes, clothes and other presents. Barring the iron tools, he would hardly use anything. Relatives said he would wear Pheran only and not even pyjamas.
His followers believed that they would heal if they were hit with Peer’s stick or the axe. They would routinely take the hit and even go to the hospital later believing that they are blessed.
A resident of Chogal, a famed Cheese village of north Kashmir, keen to stay anonymous said in the recent past when a medical doctor got a woman patient with her hand seriously injured in Peer’s attack pushed the police to register an FIR against him. “The family of the woman refused to register an FIR and the doctor had to cut a sorry figure and sent her home with 14 stitches,” the resident, personally aware of the incident said.
Another of his relatives admitted to the violent style of his “operations” when people would visit him. “He could snatch anybody’s anything,” one relative said. “He has broken several heavy phones of people. He breaks gold and even currency coins like trash. And people would be happy as they watched it happen.”
Another resident said that some of his visitors would get their doctors’ prescriptions along with the medicine including injectables to him. “He would take the injections and administer it,” one resident said. “In certain cases, he would inject any number of injectables to a person at any place in the body including neck, back, arms, leg.”
Another of his relatives said the people would get desperately near him, even though the host family would discourage the visitors. “Amisd Aeas Yourai Peath Khasan,” one relative said, meaning “people would deliberately bump into him”. The visitors would start coming at 6 am and would continue till late evening.
Aijaz said some of his followers used to get sheep, goats or a bovine and cook feasts for him and his followers. “Police did ask us if we had started Langhar, the community kitchen,” he said. “But we never did it. We constructed the wall to prevent people but we could not control it.” Sometimes, they would even arrange singers.
Not a single person that this reporter talked to said that Peer had anything that would suggest he had any greed. He even did not understand the value of the resource. He would throw in the stream the wazwaan people would cook, tear down the currency notes, and throw away or damage gifts. There is also no record of him having any feast or a regular meal or even offering a prayer.
Not many people know the rise of the violent faith healer. One resident said he had heard that the man had studied up to the eleventh class and later became a disciple of some Ameh Saeb of Yore. He reportedly wandered in forests for 12 years and later started living with one of his four sisters. Another resident said Lasa was the only son of his prosperous father, who passed the matriculation in 1962. “I am told he got a government job but his father wanted to him take care of his property,” he said. “Later, he was wandering in forests. Still, during winters, he goes to forests for more than two months and nobody knows where he is.” The resident said he is aware that he writes and has impressive handwriting but never writes talismans and taveaz’s.
People who know him personally said he dislikes people and is keen to stay away, in isolation. He usually gets angry when women are around and loses his temper. One of the key factors for his popularity is visits by very important people, including politicians, officers, police officers and even judges. Some members of the ‘cult’ are still around him outside the local police station, where the police are currently holding him. People are attributing interesting things to him though he has personally never claimed anything.
Kashmir is used to creating demi-gods in the dead and the mentally sick. The grave worship is part of the superstitious past of the space. In the recent past, one “godman” had an established case of exploiting young women and was arrested by police. His followers initially protested on the streets and later, when he was in jail, would visit him in hoards. He was eventually set free and is back to business.
