Return of normalcy, however, required an earnest call from the octogenarian hard-line separatist leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani to the people to resume their normal chores of life for next three days as all efforts of the state administration to bring normalcy to the Muslim majority valley in general and the Kashmir capital Srinagar in particular failed abjectly.
Tufail’s killing at the hands of the police is not the first incident of its kind. The bleeding Valley has gone through such traumas in the past over two decades of insurgency.
In early 2010 a 14-year old class 8th student Whammiq Farooq was killed in circumstances similar to that of Tufail Ahmad Mattoo.
Both the teenagers who tragically were the only sons of their parents fell to the tear smoke shell hitting their heads and causing instant death.
Coincidentally both fell in the same area in the old city. Death as it is said is a great leveler. However, in case of these deaths, the post-death treatment at the hands of the police was different.
Tufail who was returning home from tuition was caught in an old city area which was going through a mild clash between a group of protesters and police was beaten by the cops even after he was dead as his brain matter had oozed out after his head received a direct tear smoke shell hit.
The brutality was witnessed by many and the mistreatment of the body spread in the closely knit society of Kashmir making the shock and anger run deeper.
As the city went into turmoil on the death of Tufail, the administration began spinning stories about his death.
The first one officially fed to media was that Tufail died after being hit by a stone pelted by the protesters.
As this theory didn’t jell in the face of witnesses to the ‘murder,’ the police shelled out another version saying that ‘it was a case of murder.’
However, it didn’t stop here as the police went on to cook another story this time saying that it was a ‘mysterious death’.
The post-mortem, however, stymied all the police versions and established that Tufail’s death was caused by a tear smoke shell as there was no exit wound in the head and his hair in the wound area had burnt.
Life in Kashmir may have worn a semblance of normalcy on Wednesday, the deep anger would linger on to add to the tinderbox that Kashmir is increasingly becoming as a consequence of such incidents.
“Lava is brewing against the atrocities and could explode at any time,” Geelani in a statement said. “Due to these undemocratic measures, the situation has turned explosive and inside this, lava is brewing which could explode anytime,” the hard-line leader said.
