Clad in a bright pink salwar kameez with a matching hijab, she sounds calm and promises she will resign. She is identified by news reports as 49-year-old Gulshan Begum, the Sarpanch of Sempora VII in Rashidabad. She can be seen and heard talking, allegedly to a terrorist who has kidnapped her. The man calmly asks her why she has the numbers of police officials on her phone, according to those who have translated the conversation. Neither he, nor the woman who was allegedly kidnapped by the terrorists have raised their voices, the conversation is as calm as a rehearsed dialogue can be.
It is this ‘calmness’ that should be read as an alarm in itself. It was only days ago that Ajay Pandita Bharti, a sarpanch Larkipora in Anantnag was shot dead allegedly by terrorists. He had often asked for security. However, his requests had fallen on the deaf ears of the Jammu and Kashmir administration and the Union Government which administers the Union Territory. Ajay Pandita Bharti, had said terrorists had threatened to shoot grassroot leaders such as panches and sarpanches in Kashmir. “Even then they are not willing to give us security, not willing to give accommodations,” Ajay Pandita said in a video interview to a local news channel called Mercury Times. That video went viral on social media, hours after the father of two daughters, was shot dead, allegedly by terrorists affiliated to the The Resistance Front.
Now, the woman sarpanch, was allegedly kidnapped and made to plead for her life in front of a suspected Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist. According to TOI, Sopore SSP Javid Iqbal has said that police were trying to verify the authenticity of the viral video where the alleged terrorist is also heard saying that he was sparing the women sarpanch only “she was old enough to be his mother.”
According to the news report the kidnappers may have suspected that Gulshan Begum was a police informer. According to this report the woman sarpanch is telling the man she has the policemen’s numbers because she had been harassed recently. “I have the SP and the SHO’s phone numbers on my contacts list only because some people had been harassing me lately. Please forgive me for the sake of the Prophet. I am a poor woman. Please spare me. I will resign,” she is reported as saying in this video:
Niyanta, nicknamed Sheen by her father Ajay Pandita too came on record to repeat what her father had been saying all this while. She has demanded answers from the Union government and sought justice for her father Ajay Pandita. She reminded the nation that the government had not provided Ajay Pandita security: “My father had asked for security. No one asks for security without reason,” she said. The young woman says this apathy from the authorities is the reason no one comes forward to do something for the country.
Even though it is still under investigation, the viral video of the woman sarpanch begging for mercy is yet another reminder of the government’s apathy towards grassroot politicians and social workers who are an easy target for terror outfits.
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Ajay Pandita: When I am not safe, how can I say everyone is safe?
“Obviously it is the government’s fault,” Sheen Bharti, Ajay Pandita’s daughter to the Centre