Five suspected terrorists barged into the house of a 38-year-old man and slit his neck before dismembering the body in front of his wife and 10-year-old son at Preng village of North Kashmir's Bandipora district on Thursday night.
Victim Mohammad Yaqoob Wagay and his family members were fast asleep when the attackers, claimed to be Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives, struck. This is the fifth civilian killing in the last two months and second in last nine days in Hajin area.
The reason for the killing of Wagay was not immediately known.
Senior Superintendent of Police (Bandipora) Sheikh Zulfikar Azad said a group of LeT men headed by local terrorist Saleem Parrey is responsible for all the killings. "We had eight contacts with them in March and April but they managed to escape. It is a five-member group which includes four Pakistanis. All of those killed are innocent civilians."
Wagay was a meat seller who doubled up as a chef to make the ends meet. For the last five years, he had been constructing a house in piecemeal given his poor financial situation. The family lives in a one-room house. "This piece of land and house was gifted to him by his father-in-law," said his brother Bashir Ahmad Wagay.
Wagay's two sons are studying in Class VI and IV the local government school. On Thursday, the eldest child Umar had gone to his maternal home and there were only three people in the house when Wagay was killed.
"Who will take care of my children? Who will give them pocket money? What will happen to us," Wagay's wife Shanu Begum kept asking relatives as they tried to console her.
"Around 12 in the night five masked men wearing pherans [long cloak] broke window panes and gagged me and my son. They warned us if we will raise alarm they will kill us too. They then caught hold of my husband in sleep and killed him. When they fled I went near my husband and saw him in a pool of blood," said Shanu.
Reeling under fear, Shanu and her son jumped from the window and shouted for help. "Few days before, we saw a man lurking near our field. Though he did not tell me anything, I informed my husband. After my husband finished Sahar (pre-dawn meals for fasting) he went outside to find out. By then the man had disappeared," said Shanu.
