Minor laid to rest amid tears in Hajin

Faizan Khurshid
Baramulla (PTK)
Thousands of people attended last rites of Slain civilian a 10-year-old boy Aatif Mir S/O Mohd Shafi Mir who was kept hostage by the militants during a gunfight in Mir Mohalla Hajin in North Kashmir’s Bandipora district on friday.
Aatif who was a lone brother in four sisters and a class 5th students on rolls at Army Goodwill School Hajin was allegedly kept hostage by the militants to hinder the security operation at his uncles house where militants were holed up.
After a round of funeral prayer in the nearby Eidgah, Aatif was inhumed at his ancestral graveyard amid Pro Freeom and Anti India slogans.
“Two militants known only by their alias’s as Ali and Hubaid of LeT outfit were also killed in the Hajin encounter”, SSP Bandipora Rahul Malik said, adding both are foreigners.
SSP Bandipora while briefing media said, ” Militants initially hostaged six family members among which five members were rescued but the minor taken hostage by the trapped militants was killed by militants before the teams could reach to the third floor in which they was hiding to rescue the child.”
He had said family and members of local Auqaf committee and a magistrate were brought to the encounter site to persuade the hiding militants to release the minor boy “taken hostage by them but they didn’t released him.
It is pertinent to mention joint teams of Army’s 13RR, CRPF and SOG besieged Mir Mohalla of Hajin late on Thursday after receiving specific tipoff about the presence of militants in the house of Abdul Hamid Mir, the operation was suspended for the night and resumed early in the dawn which ended with the elimination of two militants meanwhile two AK-47 rifles were also recovered from the site.