Anantnag/Srinagar, Nov 20: Unidentified gunmen on Tuesday morning shot dead Tehreek-e-Hurriyat (TeH) district president Anantnag Hafizullah Mir in this south Kashmir district. His wife was also wounded in the attack.
Reports said that gunmen shot Mir at his home in Badru-Akingam area of Achabal.
He was rushed to District Hospital Anantnag where doctors declared him dead on arrival.
Cinfirming the death, Medical Superintendent of the District Hospital Anantnag, Dr Abdul Majeed Mehrab said Mir had been hit in the chest and abdomen.
Pertinently, Mir, who was released from jail last month after serving two-year detention, was receiving life threats, TeH had said in a statement few days ago.
“Since last one month some unknown people [were] suspiciously roaming around his house and at times knocking the doors and windows and inquiring about Mir Hafizullah,” a spokesman of TeH had said in the statement.
Meanwhile, thousands of people later participated in the funeral prayers of Mir at his ancestral place.
Condemning the killing of Hafizullah Mir, Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL) called for a shutdown on November 22 (Thursday) and protests after Friday prayers in Kashmir.
“JRL has announced a day-long complete shutdown against this barbarism and inhuman act on Thursday 22nd November 2018 and peaceful protests after Friday prayers on 23rd November to show solidarity with the movement and martyrs, who laid their lives to end this age-old slavery,” said a statement issued today.
JRL comprising Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik expressed grief and strongly condemned this “cowardly and barbaric action by the government agencies”, added the statement.
They said that Indian rulers through their local collaborators have always played “beastly role of eliminating political activists, who raise their voice against this unholy and unjustified forced occupation.”
They said “Mir Hafizullah was a highly educated, sensible and visionary pro-freedom leader and his sincerity, dedication and sacrifices have earned him a distinguished place and status in the state political circles especially south Kashmir.”
They also said “in every mass uprising, particularly in 2016, he played a pivotal and central role for about five months to sustain that movement and gave a very tough time to the government forces and finally they trapped him in a deceitful manner.”
