It was a day when crackers were already bursting loudly on the afternoon of 8 July, 2016, the third of Shawaal. People were planning the weekend out. But when the sun began to slump, the cracking explosions mixed with a razzmatazz of gunshots in South Kashmir’s area of Kokarnaag, some 60 kilometers away from Srinagar—the summer capital of Indian side of Kashmir.
On this Day, Around 8:00 pm, television channels in New Delhi broke news, “Top Hizbul Commander Burhan Killed in Jammu and Kashmir: Police”. In a few seconds the news of Burhan’s killing became viral on social media. People glued to their TV sets to know the details.
Later, A photograph of his dead body lying on a stretcher spread like wildfire on the internet. The slain in the picture didn’t properly resemble the lively and fair-faced Burhan of the Facebook pictures he and his lovers had always posted. His prominent black beard was trimmed to stubble against the contrast of his face that now looked a bit sallow. His mouth was agape and his frontal teeth seemed broken.
As the time goes by, After, each fraction of a second the Facebook was getting filled with a thousand simultaneous updates about Burhan. Bhat Nazima, then a university student, paid a virtual tribute, by posting a Kashmiri dirge for Burhan. Soon everyone was expressing his or her pride by wishing to have been a mother or a brother or a sister or even a wife of Burhan. Hundreds and thousands of people had already replaced their display pictures on Facebook with that of Burhan. They condemned his killing and paid ‘glorious tributes’ to him. Some called him a “brave leader”. People also compared him with legendary, Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front commander, Ishfaq Majeed Wani and Libya’s Omar Mukhtyar.
A Twenty-one-year old Burhan Muzafar Wani had joined indigenous militant outfit Hizbul Mujahedeen at the age of 15. A class 9th student, Burhan, his brother and their friend were once travelling on a red-and-white Yahama FZ motorcycle. A posse of Special Operations Group (SOG) stationed on a road in Tral stopped them and asked Burhan and company to buy cigarettes form them. Khalid MuzafarWani, Burhan’s elder brother, obeyed their order. But when Khalid returned with cigarettes, the SOG began to beat him ruthlessly and damaged his bike. Burhan and his friend somehow escaped from the spot, but Khalid fainted. And from a distance, Burhan had shouted at the SOG men, “I will avenge this beating.” Burhan, according to various reports waited for a right time to join the rebel ranks in Kashmir. Six months after this beating he left his home. In years to come he began to be seen as a poster boy of Hizbul. He chose social media to address Kashmiris. His videos and pictures became viral and people, mostly youth, spoke about his bravery on streets.
In a second last shot video, Burhan had urged youth to join his outfit. He also asked Kashmir police to shun their fight against rebels. Muzzafar Ahmad Wani, his father, prior to his son’s death in a conversation with a Delhi-based newspaper had claimed that people supported Burhan by providing him food and shelter for over 2190 days.
Well, On the evening of the day Burhan was killed, outside my home, huddled in several groups, hundreds of people, including women and children, stood on a footpath, abusing the SOG, the Jammu and Kashmir Police, the Central Reserved Police Force, the Border Security Force, the Rashtariya Rifles and the Army for their, “atrocities and war crimes in Kashmir”. Then a caravan of motorcyclists, waving black flags, passed by. Every time a motorcyclist chanted pro-Burhan, pro-Aazadi, pro-Pakistan and anti-India slogans, the people passionately responded with raised hands.
A large group of youths riding motorcycles and scooties joined a caravan and began marching towards Tral, the place Burhan belonged to. A man, in his mid-forties, rolled an old disused truck tire with his both hands on the road and set it ablaze. Soon after the people began heading to Tral, news about shutdowns and restrictions came out. A moment later the Internet was snapped.
After this , A very next day a lively sun shone on the valley but the streets were all drenched with the last midnight’s brief rainfall. People had assembled on the deserted streets of Parimpora, Srinagar like they did on the last dusk. The protestors installed stoppers like big boulders and poles across the roads to hamper the vehicular movement of the forces. A group of small children—all aged between10-13—made space for the passing ambulances by occasionally pushing aside the stones. Many, spinning stones in their hands, eagerly waited for Police and Paramilitary forces as they sat cross legged on the middle of the road.
Oh..!! “Didn’t you see how the sky turned red yesterday and how sharply it rained? For some person’s blood has more sanctity than the rest,’ an elderly woman said while watching the group of protesters preparing for stone pelting.
On the "Qamarari Chowk", a group of angry protesters threw stones on a local police post and the policemen ran out of the post for their lives. They aimed their AK-47 towards the sky and fired a few shots to disperse protesters. Inch by progressive inch, from one place to another, it was becoming more and more difficult to travel or simply walk on the roads.
In 2008 and 2010 mass uprisings nothing of such vehemence was visible. In Hyderpora, protestors would allow anyone to leave if one only spoke of going to Tral. At Chattargam, a protestor, sitting on a cart, showed directions with a steel rod. At some places the army shielded their bunkers with civilians to protect themselves against public rage and stones.
In a single-storey mosque at Nehama a handful of people, all in 60s-70s, sitting on their knees, were carefully listening to their Imam, the leader of prayers in the mosque. Donning a soiled off-white Khandress, the Imam seemed to teach them how to offer funeral prayers. Few hundred meters away from them was a mammoth group of women, led by a teenager boy, shouting anti-India, pro-Aazadi and pro-Pakistan slogans.
A large group of people of different age groups came out of a three-storey mosque at Marval. All of them had put on skullcaps. They began marching towards Burhan’s village or towards an open field to offer Burhan’s funeral prayers in absentia. Army stationed on the main roads towards Pulwama stopped everyone who passed by. One had to play with his life to pass them.
As Tral loomed into view, the atmosphere changed. Everything seemed different. Men, women, boys, girls, children stood out on the streets. Songs of Azadi and Jihad were playing loudly in every mosque right from Samboora to Tral. Traffic volunteers stood on every turn of the lanes. They guided vehicles towards Tral. Supported by a stick, held upright by small boulders, a brown cardboard sign that read, “Tral” directed visitors. Communities of every mosque had installed langar to provide food like Taheri (an instantly cooked rice, sautéed in turmeric, shallots and salt) for the visitors. A fair small girl stopped every visitor and handed two polythene bags full of Taheri to him. Another volunteer, a small boy, fished out a Pepsi bottle full of water from the stock of hundreds of used soft drink bottles. It seemed as if the entire village had donated used bottles to the volunteers. The boy also urged several reporters to take more Taheri.
On the link road of Noorapora, small load-carriers, scooters, motorcycles and cycles coming from both the ends jammed the traffic. People nudged their way through the massive crowds and vehicles. In 2008 such a crowd was seen when Hurriyat Conference had called for Eidgah Challo. No one was smoking. A passerby informed that Burhan’s “Funeral prayers are going on simultaneously. The last funeral prayer will be held at 5 pm.” People at Daadsar jumped into trucks, tippers, cars, sumos, bikes and cycles to have the last glimpse of Burhan. The number plates of various vehicles suggested that people had come this far to Tral from various districts of the Valley. The vehicles that arrived from: Srinagar, Budgam, Baramulla, Bandipora, Gandarbal etc. were overcrowded with both men and women.
People gathered at Shareefabaad second after second. Burhan was laid to rest at 2:30 pm. The ground closer to the Martyr’s Graveyard was filled with women. They were trying their best to look at Burhan’s grave. The graveyard was on a plateau. It was covered with some branches. Burhan’s had been buried next to his brother Khalid who was killed by the forces a year ago to provoke Burhan for retaliation.
The portion where ‘martyrs’ were buried was enclosed with a yellow nylon rope. A person donning light brown Khandress crossed the nylon border and started reciting Sura-e-fateha. After finishing, he spread his hands and cried. Aimed sobs, he shouted, “Oh Allah set free us from India.”
Mourners surrounding him responded “Aameen,” with wet eyes. Some of them cried loudly and even slapped their faces. They could not believe Burhan was dead. Before leaving the graveyard people tossed fistfuls of soil on his grave as a mark of respect. The volunteers near the grave asked mourners to clear space for others. Three boys sat on a plinth of the graveyard. One of them identified himself as Tauseef Ahmad. He said, “No one was in their houses when we heard the news. The atmosphere in Tral was completely different. People waited for him like anything.”
When Burhan was brought home at around 2 am that day, people thronged his house in stampedes. They climbed its walls. “You won’t find walls around his house. All the walls of his house have collapsed.” Ahmad said. He explained that the situation was similar when people offered his final funeral prayers. “Twenty funeral prayers were held one after another in the Eidgah, stretched around 150 kanaals of land, in just one day. The rope tied around the graves was actually protected by an iron fence earlier, and that is gone.”
Another local resident who did not provide her name said, “Seeing the rush, I’m sure, people would still have been offering Burhan’s funeral prayers had his father Muzzafar Sahib not intervened. He requested people to bury him as soon as possible. He perhaps was right, something would definitely have happened here because people were getting angry on seeing his dead body.”
A well-built, bearded tall man rebuked some men who were requesting an ambulance driver to drop women where they had come from. “More than fifty people have been injured so far [around 3:30 pm] while fighting against Indian pigs. Who will take them to hospital if he goes and drops them?” he questioned. “Keep ambulances free and ready we may require them anytime,” he shouted.
Members of the local Sikh community helped Muslims in distribution of water and Taheri to the travelers. An elderly Sikh man tore a pack of biscuit packets and threw some packets to people sitting atop a trolley of a tractor.
The Tral-Srinagar highway was occupied by thousands of angry protesters. The Army convoy that passed below was showered by thousands of stones as protesters took an advantage of the height. They continuously shouted at civilians to hurry up and go away from the army so that were better able to pelt the army vehicles.
Saturday July 9, 2016, a day after Burhan was killed, become bloodier with the killing of 12 unarmed protesters and the 200 injured across the Valley. All the protestors everywhere praised Burhan for reviving militancy. Faheem Munawar (name-changed), an engineering student and a stone thrower had come from Nowhatta, Srinagar to participate in the protest in the district of Pulwama. “Atrocities by Indian forces created Burhan. They forced him to pick up gun and then labeled him as terrorist. He was not a terrorist. India is terrorist but the international community is not able to see it,” said Munawar.
Two years after his death Burhan continues to be the role model for millions of Kashmiris. People across the disputed territory of Kashmir continue to praise him for his kindheartedness, as he opposed the killing of local policemen and informers, and the way carried mission Kashmir to its, “logical conclusion.”
Post to Burhan’s killing hundreds of educated youth have picked up arms to fight against the decades long Indian rule. The rebel ranks have witnessed the recruitment of scholars, professors and hundreds of youth belonging to well of families and the number is increasing day by day. The new-age militants have remained firm to their goal, “freedom from India,” as they refuse to surrender when trapped in an encounter. In most of the cases the families of newly recruited militants have also supported them to remain firm on their stand.
Recently a video had gone viral on Facebook where a girl clad in a black veil refused Indian army’s request by asking his militant brother, Adil Ahmad Wani, to surrender as he has gone in a wrong direction. “If he returns home, I will martyr him with my own hands,” the militant’s sister is heard saying to an army man sitting near the militant’s father on a veranda of their house in the 1-minute and 42-second video clip.
The situation in Kashmir has also witnessed another phase as hundreds of youth throng encounter sites with an aim to help militants to flee from the site of gun battle. Several young boys have given their lives for the cause and have successfully managed to help militants from being killed. Arif Nazir (name-changed), a stone thrower, said, “We Kashmiris have now understood the importance of the gun so we have left with no options than to help militants despite knowing the fact we might be killed.”
Nazir said that had Burhan’s encounter prolonged for few more hours he along with my dozens of friends would have gone right up to Kokarnaag to shield away Burhan. “Only an army of boys could have fought with an army of killers,” he said, Two years ago they killed Burhan and today each house has one.”
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