“I will not leave (Kashmir) and be silenced by the gun,” asserts Dr Sandeep Mawa whose employee Ibrahim Khan was shot dead by suspected terrorists in Srinagar on Monday night.
Dr Mawa, a Kashmiri Pandit, in an exclusive conversation, told CNN-News18, “I have an XUV (vehicle). I got a call around 3 in the afternoon from the police that I could be targeted. So, I left home in my small car. Ibrahim (Khan) went to take my XUV from the store around 8 pm. The militant was lurking there in the dark. He thought it was me and pumped four bullets in him (Khan).”
Mawa said Khan’s killer was lurking in the Borikadal area where he has his family business. His employee said he saw the firing.
Ibrahim Khan, 45, of Bandipore district, who was working as a salesman at Mawa’s shop, is survived by his parents, wife, a daughter and a son. Mawa says Ibrahim was employed with him for the last 15 years. “I don’t know how to face his family. It feels as if I am responsible for his death,” Mawa said.
Terrorist group Muslim Janbaz force, which was believed to be defunct, has claimed responsibility for Khan’s death. An unsigned letter written in Urdu said Sandeep Mawa and his father Roshan Lal Mawa were the “real targets”. “…both father-son duo was working with Indian agencies and that is why they were targeted. They were involved in bringing non-locals to Kashmir,” the letter read. The police are verifying the authenticity of the letter.
So far, 12 civilians have been killed in the Valley since October. Three policeman too have been gunned down by suspected terrorists, including the one on Sunday. Constable Tausif Ahmad was fired upon by terrorists around 8 pm near his residence at SD Colony in the Batamaloo area. A Bihari migrant worker was earlier shot dead in the same area.
Mawa’s father Roshan Lal, a prominent Kashmiri businessman, was shot at by terrorists in the 1990s forcing the family to migrate to Jammu and Delhi. They returned to the Valley in 2019. “My father is in Delhi. I am in Srinagar with my wife and two children. They are very scared after the latest incident but I am trying to convince them. I will not leave Kashmir,” Mawa asserted.
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