The lynching of Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Mohammed Ayub Pandith, which sent shockwaves throughout India (though failed to get mentioned in #NotInMyName activism), was more violent and inhuman than it was initially believed to be.
A Hindustan Times report says that Ayub Pandith’s gruesome killing was captured on a video by a civilian who has been an informant for several agencies operating in the Kashmir Valley, but it was not released for being too gory.
A top official, who saw the video, was quoted as saying, “DSP Ayub Pandith was stripped naked and then violently pummelled. His arms and legs were bent and broken just as someone breaks sugarcane before eating it.”
The video was so violent that the Jammu & Kashmir government reportedly bought and destroyed it in fear of public repercussions.
57-year-old Ayub Pandith, a DSP posted in the Security Wing of the Jammu & Kashmir Police, was lynched by a mob outside Jamia Masjid in Srinagar on 23 June night. The officer was keeping an eye over crowd movement outside the Jamia Masjid where thousands of people had gathered for night-long congregational prayer on Shab-e-Qadr, which is considered as the holiest night of Islam.
Pandith, a resident of Nowpara district of Jammu & Kashmir, is survived by his wife, a 28-year-old son and a 22-year-old daughter. Pandith is known as an honest and upright cop who always kept duty before himself. A MCom and LLB, Pandith had joined Jammu & Kashmir Police in 1990. After serving as an SHO for a long time, he was promoted to the rank of DSP and was posted in the 3rd battalion for security duties.
The post-mortem report of Pandith had suggested a high degree of violence on his body. According to the post mortem report, Pandith had multiple fatal injuries on head, multiple contusions, abrasions near the shoulder and haematoma which resulted in his death.
“It is time for Kashmiri people to introspect on how they as a society have stooped to such level of violence and that too on a day of forgiveness. The killing of Pandith is akin to the killing of humanity. All those involved will face the law,’’ SP Vaid, Director General of Police of Jammu & Kashmir Police, was quoted as saying.
