At around 10:30 am, social media in the Valley burst forth with the picture of the lifeless, bullet riddled body of a young man lying outside a vehicle in Babapora Zainpora village, some 65 kms South of Srinagar.As the residents in the adjoining Nowpora Kharpora village saw the picture, they identified the slain man as Shahid Aijaz, son of Aijaz Ahmad Rather, a village farmer.Shahid (19) had gone to the village a couple of days ago to work as a farmworker as the harvesting season in the Valley is at its peak.However, due to the filthy weather, Shahid decided to head back home with a small bag full of apples.Sporting jeans and Pheran, a loose long garment worn by natives in the Valley particularly during wings, when Shahid reached near a CRPF facility, bullets tore through him.”We did not know how he was killed. After seeing his picture on the social media, we rushed to the village to claim his body,” said Adil Ahmad, a family member of Shahid.Police said that the youth was killed during cross firing after militants attacked a CRPF’s Naka party in Babapora village.”Around 10:30 hrs unidentified terrorists attacked a Naka party of 178 Bn, CRPF at Babapora, Shopian. CRPF retaliated the fire and during cross-firing, one unidentified person got killed. Further details are being ascertained,” the Shopian district police tweeted.”God knows better what actually happened there. But we don’t have any concrete reason to believe the police version,” said a local resident of Nowpora Kharpora village.The incident occurred at a time when Home Minister Amit Shah is on a three-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir. This is the Home Minister’s first Kashmir Sojourn after New Delhi withdrew the special status of the region and broke it into two Union Territories.
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