Srinagar, December 14, 2019 (PPI-OT): In occupied Kashmir, an officer of an Indian intelligence agency hurled life threats to the elderly parents of a Kashmiri student of New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University from Kulgam. The student, Aejaz Ahmed in an interview said that an intelligence officer in plainclothes grilled his parents and told them that a “bullet doesn’t ask for an address”, leaving them deeply upset.
Aejaz Ahmad Rathar, a PhD scholar of history, was General Secretary of the JNU Students’ Union during the previous academic year and has participated in the recent agitation against the hostel fee hike. A member of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI), Aejaz Ahmad Rathar, who is from Kulgam district, has also appeared on TV debates on the fee hike and the repeal of special status of occupied Kashmir.
“On December 7, a plainclothes man claiming to be intelligence operative visited my family in Sopat, Tangpora village of Kulgam district in Kashmir,” Aejaz Ahmad Rathar told media men. “He interrogated my old parents, seeking details such as our family income and the professions of members of not just my family but also our relatives,” he added.
The intelligence operative used coercive language with my parents, asking them to pressurize me into severing my political engagements, he said.
“He told my parents to ask me to look for a ‘better path’, in effect, to ask me to dissociate myself from political activism and submit to the government’s corrupt, communal and unconstitutional activities. He threatened my family that I would face unspeakable consequences if I didn’t follow their diktats. He threatened them in a highly disrespectful manner by telling them that ‘goli kisi ka address poochh kar naheen chalti (a bullet doesn’t ask for an address after being fired).”
Aejaz Rathar said the officer’s visit left his parents in shock, and that his siblings had to return home from the various parts of Kashmir they now lived in to calm their parents.
He added, “The officer asked why I kept appearing on TV and whether we were involved in any illegal activity or shestarkaem.” “Shestarkaem”, a Kashmiri word, means “ironwork” and is a euphemism for rebellion.
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