Early Times Report
Jammu, Apr 15: Eight months on since this braveheart was abducted by militants and is believed to have been killed, the politicians in Kashmir are silent on the tragedy.
Shakir Manzoor Wagay, a soldier in the Territorial Army was abducted, tortured and killed. It was on August 2, 2020, when the life of Wagay took a tragic turn. The 24-year-old rifleman with the 162 Battalion of TA, had come home to celebrate Eid with family.
While returning to his unit in Balpora, militants intercepted his car and abducted him at gunpoint. For hours they tortured, Shakir, and his body is believed to have been dumped somewhere.
Since then, his family, including aged father have been looking for the body of their son.
During the last eight months, not a single day has passed in the Wagay family when his father didn’t dig some piece of land to search for the body of his son.
A few days after Shakir's abduction, an audio clip, that was not verified by government agencies had went viral on social media in which one of the militants, who claimed to be one Abu Talha, claimed the responsibility for killing Shakir.
Though in the police records Shakir is believed to be missing unless his body is found, the family wants him to be remembered as martyr.
Ironically while the mainstream politicians of Kashmir claim to be champions of the human rights, most of them, especially the prominent ones are silent on the issue.
Though such leaders often make it a point to visit families of anti-national forces in such cases, none of the big leaders or the concerned Member Parliament of the constituency has visited the family.
“The problem in Kashmir is that the politicians who enjoy protection of the security forces don’t speak in favor of the security forces even in such cases. And this is the biggest irony,” said a senior official on the condition of anonymity. |
