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| India-Pakistan |
| Jammu-Valley love story ends in tragedy |
| 2009-10-10 |
| Jammu, India: A seven-year love story of a Muslim girl from Kashmir and a Hindu boy from Jammu has ended in tragedy: the boy is dead and the girl — now his wife — has accused police of colluding with her family to kill him. Two policemen have been suspended and a third transferred, and the administration is struggling to put a lid on simmering tension that has already seen two senior officials being manhandled by mobs. On October 6, Jammu businessman Rajneesh Sharma was found hanging in a cell in Srinagar’s Ram Munshi Bagh police station. He had been picked up from his brother Pawan Sharma’s home in Rehari in Jammu on October 2 by policemen who apparently mistook him for Pawan. The Srinagar administration ordered a magisterial inquiry into the custodial death, and an autopsy was conducted. However, after the Sharma brothers’ mother Raj Rani identified the body as Rajneesh’s, a second autopsy was done at the Government Medical College Hospital in Jammu. Rajneesh’s wife Anchal — who used to be called Amina earlier — told Jammu Deputy Commissioner Manoj Dwivedi today that she believed her family in the Valley had a hand in her husband’s death. “My father and brothers have killed my husband... you hang them,” she shouted, distraught. She accused her family in Kashmir of lying when they said she was underage, and declared she had married Rajneesh of her free will. “When I left the Valley, my mother knew I was going to Jammu to get married. She prepared food for the journey,” Anchal told The Indian Express. “My family bribed the police, spent money to get my husband killed,” she alleged. According to Anchal, she first met Rajneesh seven years ago — when she was 20. He used to visit Kashmir in connection with his aluminium fabrication business. “We met in Gulmarg. We would meet in restaurants, and stayed in touch on cell phones. Finally, we decided to marry,” she said. They were married in an Arya Samaj temple on August 21. The same day, Anchal’s father Mohammad Yousuf filed a report with the Nehru Park police post in the Valley saying his 17-year-old daughter Amina was missing. On August 25, the police registered a case of kidnapping of a minor, and zeroed in on Rajneesh and Pawan through cell phone records. According to police, the family of Amina/Anchal told them they knew the brothers, who would frequently stay at their houseboat. With the help of their counterparts in Jammu, the Srinagar police located Rajneesh in Rehari. However, it seems that when the police arrived, Rajneesh pretended he was Pawan. He was brought to Ram Munshi Bagh police station, where he, according to an initial probe by the police, hanged himself with a pheran. The Sharmas alleged foul play and refused to cremate the body, demanding the registration of a case of murder, and the arrest of the policemen. Two policemen and the SHO of Ram Munshi Bagh police station have been taken off their posts. Today, a mob gheraoed Deputy Commissioner Diwedi outside the Sharma home. His deputy Rohit Khajuria was manhandled. The officers were finally rescued by SP City Randeep Kumar and SDPO Swatantar Arora. In the evening, senior civil and police officers met with the family in the presence of prominent Jammu citizens at the police control room. The administration agreed to a cash compensation and jobs for two members of the family. The family agreed to cremate Rajneesh tomorrow. |
| Posted by:john frum |