In Kashmir, several videos of parents, siblings or wives pleading to trapped militants to surrender before security forces during live encounters have gone viral, but there are have been few where small kids were seen urging their militant fathers to lay down arms and give life a chance.
One such painful appeal was made early on Monday when four-year-old Affan asked his father, Aqib Ahmad Malik, to come out of hiding, surrender before the Army and reunite with him.
“Abuji, I have been missing you. Please come out, you won’t be harmed,” Affan said on a public address system of police. He was repeating the words of person, who was apparently a close family member, who stood by him.
Malik, who joined militancy in December last year, however, did not pay heed to his son’s cries and was killed in the encounter hours later along with three of his associates. Malik and two others had signed up for militancy late last year, while the fourth person had joined them month ago.
Malik’s body was found next to a razed house where the four had taken refuge and fired at teams of police and Army when they had laid a tight siege of Manihal village in Shopian late last night. Police said it recovered three pistols and a rifle from the site.
Around midnight, Affan mother had made a similar plea to Malik. “Please surrender for our sake. Affan will die. Aifa will die. Shoot me first if you don’t want to come out. They will not harm you,” she said, adding, “We have come to take you…please listen to us.”
A policeman had earlier made repeated calls on loudhailer to the four holed up militants to lay down arms, a clipping of which was leaked on social media and it became viral instantly.
“You have been ghearoed from all sides and there is no way you can escape. Take off your pheran, raise your hands and come out,” he said.
Major General Rashim Bali, GOC Victor Force, told reporters the Army facilitated Malik’s wife and child to appeal to him to surrender. “We brought the family during late hours to persuade him to surrender. We waited till morning for him. We came to know that though he wanted to come out, he was stopped by his two associates. We were ready to give him a chance to surrender till the very last minute,” he said, adding, “One of our soldiers got injured when he had stepped forward in an attempt to take him out safely.”
Inspector General of Police Vijay Kumar said, “We were hoping they would surrender, but instead they fired which was retaliated,” he said. “Our focus is on surrender of the locals during or before the encounters.”
Kumar said the four were categorised as LeT militants even though they claimed to be members of Lashkar-e-Mustafa.
On social media, Kashmiris expressed pain, regret and rage over the manner in which the child made an appeal his father.
The family of Aqib Malik, one of the Militant killed in Shopian encouter were brought to Mainhal encounter site by Police to persuade Aqib to surrender. pic.twitter.com/C4iGcugrJT— Qazi Shibli (قاضی شبلی) (@QaziShibli) March 22, 2021
While a lot of people said Malik should have heeded to his child’s plea and laid down his weapon, others said he should not have joined militancy in the first place.
A few wrote that little Affan should not have been brought to the encounter site, especially when the end was in likelihood would have been painful. The child would always be haunted by images of what he saw around him on the day when he made that last appeal to his father with whom he has separated forever.
“He should have joined his family. That was his jehad,” wrote a person on Facebook. Responding to this, an Army officer said they wanted to make every effort to ensure the man survived. “We waited for a long time so that he comes out,” he said.
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