BJP has said that security lapse led to killing of the party workers in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kulgam
SRINAGAR: A day after killing of a youth leader and his two associates in southern Kulgam district, the question doing the rounds is where there was a security lapse.
The BJP leadership has raised the issue of a security lapse resulting in killing of party leaders. This question was put to IGP Kashmir range Vijay Kumar when he was addressing a media conference on Friday. The IGP said that they had provided security to all BJP activists according to their threat perception. He also informed the media that they have seized the vehicle used by Lashkar militants and have identified them.
He said that Fida Hussain who has been identified by BJP as the General Secretary of their Yuva Morcha in Kulgam, was given accommodation in hotel Dolphin at Pahalgam along with security. “After 15 days of stay in the hotel, he gave a written undertaking that he has no threat and wants to return to his family” said IGP Kashmir range.
He claimed that the militants involved in attack have been identified and that Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) and The Resistance Front (TRF) carried out the attack on Thursday night.
A group of gunmen had at around 8 pm on Thursday shot and critically wounded Fida Hussain Itoo, general secretary of the J-K unit of BJP Yuva Morcha, and two other party workers, Umar Ramzan Hajam and Umer Rashid Beigh, in Kulgam’s Yaripora village. They were quickly evacuated to an emergency trauma hospital along the Srinagar-Jammu highway in Qazigund area but doctors at the hospital pronounced them dead on arrival.
Meanwhile, some villagers and family members of the victim are denying that they were part of any BJP organisation operating in Kashmir. One of the families of slain youth did not allow the BJP leaders to enter their home on Friday. Family of Fida Hussain contradicted the claims of BJP and told the visiting media persons that he was not associated with BJP. Similarly, two other slain BJP activists are not being identified either by villagers or by their family members as being associated with BJP.
Fida Hussain was BJP’s youth general secretary, said the visiting BJP leaders who demanded more security for their activists.
“Our nine active members have been killed in the past few months and many got injured, we have been pleading with administration for security cover but they are not concerned about us,” said Altaf Thakur who is a local BJP leader in Kashmir.
Umar Ramzan Hajam is another youth of Yaripora village of Kulgam who was killed in this incident. According to his family members, he was never part of any political organization and had come back after delivering goods in Tamil Nadu as he used to drive a truck regularly.
Similarly, the family of Haroon Rashid Beigh, another youth killed in this incident said that he was running a workshop and used to be active in the village along with his friends. The family members said that Haroon was never part of any BJP organization operating in Kulgam.
About Fida’s two colleagues, who were killed along with him, police do not seem to have enough evidence to prove that they were part of any BJP organization, including BJYM.