Police Officer Beaten to Death by a Mob in Kashmir
Farooq Khan / European Pressphoto Agency
SRINAGAR, Kashmir — A high-ranking police officer has been beaten to death in Kashmir by an angry mob that witnesses say had taken him for a spy or assassin. At least two suspects have been arrested.
The victim, Mohammed Ayub Pandith, the deputy superintendent for the security wing of the Jammu and Kashmir state police, had gone to a mosque in Srinagar, the Jamia Masjid, on Thursday for prayers on Shab-e-Qadr, a night on the Muslim calendar when the Quran is believed to have been revealed to the Prophet Muhammad. A prominent religious leader and separatist, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, was giving a sermon.
Accounts about what transpired vary. Shesh Paul Vaid, the top Indian police officer in the region, said that Officer Pandith, who had been in civilian clothes, had gone to the mosque “to ensure the protection of people offering prayers there.”
Having sent his security detail home, Officer Pandith began to feel threatened when worshipers at the mosque singled him out and began closing in, Mr. Vaid said. At a certain point, Officer Pandith pulled out his revolver “and in self-defense he fired a couple of rounds” into the crowd, he added.
Witnesses described a different sequence of events. One said a group of people had spotted Officer Pandith moving around the mosque with at least one other man, and said one of them was taking photographs.
“A group of youths confronted the two men and asked for their identity papers,” said a witness, Abdul Rashid. “A confrontation broke out during which one of the men managed to escape. The other took out a pistol from a holster and fired at the crowd, injuring three persons.”
People then called Officer Pandith a killer, Mr. Rashid said. Other witnesses said the officer was then disarmed, stripped naked and paraded around the area before being beaten to death with stones.
“People were shouting ‘We have caught a C.I.D. man,’ ” said Mushtaq Khan, a resident of the area, referring to the crime investigation department of the Kashmir police. “Then they paraded him naked, and he was beaten to death.”
Another witness, Adnan Bhat, a journalist, said that only a few people had tried to come to Officer Pandith’s defense, and that they had been quickly turned aside. Almost everyone else in the crowd just looked on, he said, “as if this were normal.”
“They lynched him,” Mr. Bhat said. “People stood and watched. People were eating chicken, some shops were open. There were thousands of people watching. And if anyone says otherwise, they are lying.”
The chief minister of the state of Jammu and Kashmir, Mehbooba Mufti, who has faced criticism for her handling of recent tensions, condemned the killing at a ceremony for Officer Pandith on Friday morning.
“The killing is actually a murder of trust,” she said. “Jammu and Kashmir police have been showing restraint because they are dealing with their own people. This is a very inhuman attack.”
Mr. Farooq, who was giving the sermon Thursday night, said in a Twitter post that he was “deeply disturbed” by the attack, which he condemned. “Mob violence & public lynching is outside the parameters of our values & religion,” he wrote.
The violence reflected heightened tensions in the Kashmir Valley, where separatist sentiment is high and where people have criticized what they call heavy-handed tactics used by the police and security forces to quell protests that broke out last summer after the killing of a charismatic young militant.
The local police forces play a contentious role in the valley. Though staffed largely with people from the region, they are seen as extensions of the national government in a place where many long for independence.
Some said the layers of distrust for the authorities played a role in the killing on Thursday night. Sajad Ahmad Sheikh, a resident of the Nowhatta area of Srinagar, where the mosque stands, said that people were saying that Officer Pandith had come to the mosque to kill Mr. Farooq.
“People there said he was from outside the state, had come to kill Mirwaiz and perhaps worked for the army,” he said.
Abdullah Pandith, brother of the slain officer, described him as a devout Muslim who joined the Kashmir police in 1990.
“It is a great loss,” the brother said. The officer had left his home after 10 p.m. Thursday, “promising his children he would back soon.”
