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| Scared, village heads accuse Govt of playing with their lives | | Fresh spate of threatening | | Javaid Naikoo
SRINAGAR, Feb 23: With threatening spate afresh pushing resignations out of fear by the Village Heads, worries seem to be unending for Panchayat members in Kashmir , most of whom are ruing and regretting their decision of having participated in the polls held in 2011.
Nine more village heads were threatened to resign by some unidentified people in south Kashmir's Rawalpora, Dashipora and Ayend areas of District Shopian. Soon after they were elected with overwhelming participation of people in their respective areas, unidentified gun man started killing them across the Kashmir without any discrimination of age and sex.
The village heads namely Ghulam Mohi-ud-Din, Fayaz Ahmad, Subzar Ahmad Wani, Shabir Ahmad Ganai, Shabnam Banoo, Javaid Ahmad, Naseema Banoo, Parmeena Jan, Manzoor Ahmad were asked resign publically and apologize in their local Mosques. After hundreds resigned last year following threats and later killings by some unidentified people at many places in north and south Kashmir, it was for the first time this year in South Kashmir, where village heads were asked to resign from their posts or bear consequences in near future by unidentified gunmen. According to locals of these villages in Shopian, four unidentified persons with long beard appeared in these villages during late night hours and approached these resigned village heads and asked them to resign publically from their posts in their local Mosques.
Keeping anonymity of his name one village head said that around four persons who first broke down the street lights in the area approached him that evening at his home and asked him to resign and ask others to do so on Friday or else they will be killed. Panchayat Representatives would themselves be responsible for their lives, gunmen said on a warning note. The village head whom this threatening was given said he could not see the faces of the gunmen due to darkness that prevailed after they broke the street light apparently for hiding their identity.
When asked about providing security to them by Government, the resigned village heads said that soon after the panachayat elections, village heads became soft targets for these unidentified people across the Kashmir because nobody cares for their lives and political parties always used them as their tools to play politics against each other. One Sarpanch of National Conference party, Ishtiyaq Ahmad of Shopian who is on wheel chair after he was attacked by some unidentified militants last year at his residence said that it cost him more than two lakh rupees in various hospitals across the State to save his life and until now not a single person from any Government agency has ever approached a for any sort of help.
"State Government used elected panchayat members as puppets to grab lakhs and crores in the name of re-establishing panchayat system in Kashmir," added Ishtiyaq. Pertinent to mention here that Chief Minister Omar Abdullah himself has many a times said that village heads will be provided every sort of help after unidentified people started attacking them but that remains elusive. Neither security cover nor insurance scheme demand of village heads have been fulfilled by the Government in Kashmir so far. |
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