A mob on Thursday set ablaze the house and orchard of Ghulam Mohammed Shaikh, the maternal uncle of one of the Hizbul Mujahideen militants, Sartaj Shaikh, who was killed along with Burhan Wani and another terrorist last Friday.
The mob did so on the suspicion that it was Ghulam who had acted as a police informer, and given away Burhan’s whereabouts. Residents of Bamdoora village on Larkipora-Kokernag road in Tral alleged that Wani was killed in a fake encounter. They said he was caught on Friday morning and killed the same day, explaining the mob’s rage against Ghulam in burning down his house in which Burhan was hiding and was eventually killed.
In Bamdoora village, nine houses have been set on fire in the last couple of days because the agitated youth suspected a few other villagers to be ‘mukhbir’ (police informers).
A high density fruit orchard in Kokernag, set up in 2009 in by a US educated Kashmiri farmer, too was over-run by a mob. The orchard was an innovative method for apple growers in the entire valley, the farmer, whose name is being held back, said.
A police spokesman denied the villagers’ claims saying while they were indeed on the look out of the 22-year-old terrorist, and had deployed sophisticated tracking devices to locate him, Burhan was killed in an encounter after he refused to surrender, and instead he and his associates began firing from the house.
It was then that they fired back and eventually used landmines to blow up the house where Burhan had been hiding.
Mob sets ablaze house where Burhan wani was killed
