Braving rain, thousands bid Faizan farewell

They didn’t pay heed to the threat of the rising river water flooding their area or to the constant rain soaking everyone wet. Such was the depth of the grief and agony that tens of thousands of mourners poured into Ludhow regardless, to have a last glimpse of the 15-year-old boy Faizan Ahmed Poswal shot dead by the government forces on Friday at the site of the shootout in Pulwama.

Faizan was part of the huge crowd of pro-freedom protestors who had descended on the Thumna village of Pulwama, where three militants were engaged in a shootout with the government forces. To beat back the protestors, the government forces used heavy force in which Faizan was grievously wounded. When he was taken to the nearby hospital, it was his father there, Dr Abdul Gani Poswal, to whom fell the heart-breaking task of declaring his son dead.

The protestors though did in part succeed in their goal; two of the three militants in the besieged locality managed to break free of the cordon put around them. But Faizan lost his life in saving the two militants from death at the hands of the government forces. One of the militants who didn’t succeed in fleeing from the spot was killed by the government forces.

A large gathering of mourners took turns to participate in his funeral prayer. The rush of mourners coming into his hometown was so large that four rounds of funeral prayers had to be arranged to accommodate more mourners. Many of the mourners went up to the slain boy’s father to comfort him and the young shouted pro-freedom, Pro-Pakistan, and pro-Islam slogans. While the young were carrying his body towards the graveyard, women, on rooftops and from their windows, threw rose petals and candies on his remains.

The distraught relatives of the slain young boy appealed to the international community to press India for resolving the Kashmir dispute. “Why doesn’t anyone resolve this Kashmir dispute once for all? Today our beloved son was killed, tomorrow it could be others,” they said.