SHOPIAN: Mansoor Ahmad cannot reconcile with the fact that late Saturday night he served hot tea and fresh apples to soldiers he believes were returning after killing his son as they trembled in biting cold.
Ahmad’s son, Shahid Mansoor Mir was allegedly killed in cold blood by government forces on Saturday evening during a gun battle with militants in Gagran village of Shopian district.
“After the firing stopped, they came over to my house and asked for tea. We served them hot tea and they also ate apples as much as they could,” said Ahmad, who alleged his son was abducted by soldiers hours before the gun the battle that also left one militant dead broke out.
“I also offered them Kangris (fire pots) as they were trembling with biting cold,” he said, adding little did he know he “was hosting the killers of his son.”
As Ahmad spoke Mir’s son, all of 5 years old frolicked from lap to lap of the gathered mourners at his grandfather’s home, oblivious that he was orphaned.
Just a little distance away on a hillock stands the ransacked house of Ahmad’s slain son, near the actual site of the firefight.
Shards of smashed window panes were lying on the milky white snow that had carpeted the whole area. Damaged household goods were strewn all over the rooms.
“They have vandalised his house. They damaged everything in the house,” said Ahmad.
Ahmad says when his daughter-in-law got to know her husband was picked up by the forces, she locked her home and along with her son came over to the house of a neighbour.
“I was waiting for his return. I thought he would return before its dark, but he did not. Now will he ever?” asks Heema Jan, Mir’s wife.
The couple had married some seven years ago and lived happily with their child.
Ahmad repeated the story to the streaming mourners of how he served steaming hot tea and fresh apples to the soldiers after they returned from the site of the gunfight where his son lay dead.