Less than 48 hours after he was told that his son, who had enlisted in the Army, had joined the terrorist outfit, Hizbul Mujahideen, 49-year-old Mohammad Sultan Meer was back at work.
Meer, who teaches at a government primary school near his house, says getting back to work will help him forget the grief that has struck the family.
A picture of Mir Idrees Sultan and, right, his mother Raja Banoo at her home in Shopian .
Meer Idrees Sultan, 23, the second of his five children, left home at Safanadari in South Kashmir’s Shopian on April 15, telling his family that he had to rejoin his Army unit. Within hours, however, the Hizb released his photograph on social media, saying he had joined the outfit. Soon the picture went viral.
Deployed in Doklam
Idrees had joined the Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry in 2015. After about a year’s training, he was posted in Bihar’s Katihar district. It was the first time he had travelled outside the Kashmir Valley. Last July, his unit was deployed in Doklam during the tense stand- off between Indian and Chinese troops. With patchy communication lines, Idrees had only once called home from Doklam — on Eid to wish his family.
Mr. Meer recalled that when Idrees came home last in January, he had taken him to Chandigarh to see a doctor. He had told the family that he had no plans to come home in April.
However, Idrees told his unit in Bihar that he had emergency work at home and applied for 10 days’ leave.
“He came home on April 13. After two days he told us that he has been transferred to Khrew near Pulwama. He left home at 3 p.m. on April 15. When we called him at 8 p.m. to check if he had reached, his phone was turned off. We kept calling him every hour. We feared he had been abducted by militants,” said Mr. Meer with tears in his eyes.
Less that a year ago, Lt. Ummer Fayaz from nearby Kulgam was allegedly abducted and killed by Hizbul Mujahideen militants in Shopian district when he had gone to attend a wedding.
The family said none of the men from the village had joined the militants in the recent past. Yawar Majeed, from a nearby village, who had joined the Hizbul in 2017, was killed on April 1 along with 12 other alleged militants in Shopian when security forces launched multiple operations.
Education cut short
Mr. Meer said that by 1 p.m. on April 16, Idrees’ photograph was all over social media. “My eldest son Muzamil showed me the picture on his phone. I could not believe my eyes — he had joined the militants. We rushed to a nearby police post to report that he was missing,” said Mr. Meer, who doesn’t use a mobile phone.
Ironically, Mr. Meer says Idrees was the first in the family and the village to join the Army. Earlier he had been was pursuing a B.Sc degree at the Government Degree College in Anantnag, around 20 kms away.
Raja Banoo, Mir Idress Sultan's mother.
“We did not want him to join the Army. You know what happened with Ummer Fayaz. We have orchards and I am a government school teacher. If he wanted he could have pursued higher education and taken up any other job, but he insisted. He showed no inclination of joining the militants; we are in deep shock,” said Mr. Meer.
Recalling the fateful day his son disappeared, Mr. Meer said, “He accompanied me to a peer baba (shrine) in the morning. I wanted to go there as I have had two surgeries and I don't keep well. My eyesight is weak that is why I don't use a mobile phone. But that day, he was continuously speaking to someone on the phone. I did not know what he was talking about. He had to attend a wedding at Budgam in the evening, but he refused to go there, saying he had to join work at the earliest.”
Mr. Muzamil said his brother had deleted his Facebook account after he went missing. “Maybe it was all pre-planned. When I saw his pictures on social media, I checked his Facebook profile. It had been deleted. Our house is undergoing construction and before coming home on April 13, he had asked me to send pictures of the renovated kitchen. After that we exchanged no messages on WhatsApp,” said Mr. Muzamil, who is pursuing a Masters in English through distance education from IGNOU. He said Idrees had bought a new phone about a month back.
Idrees’ mother Raja Bano sits in a corner and nods her head in approval whenever Mr. Muzamil speaks. “I want my son back,” she says in Kashmiri.
Mr. Meer said his son had become interested in the armed forces in 2013. “He couldn’t join the Army that year as we did not have his caste certificate. He asked me to get the certificate so that he could apply afresh. He applied the next year and got through the recruitment,” the grief-stricken father said.
