Achan, Pulwama: At around 10 am on Sunday, February 26, Sanjay Kumar Sharma, 45, a Kashmiri Pandit, was, according to his family, on the way to a hospital with his wife, Sunita Sharma, when unknown gunmen opened fire at him from a close range, hitting his chest and leaving him lethally wounded.
Neighbours including, Mohammad Maqbool first confused the sound of gunshots with the short-circuiting of naked electric wires running close to the building. As they rushed to inquire, a woman’s desperate cries for help soaked the morning air in panic and gloom and chaos broke out.
“Sanjay was lying in a pool of blood on the road while Sunita was holding him, screaming madly. We got a vehicle and immediately shifted him to a hospital where doctors later said that he had passed away,” Maqbool, a private bank security guard, told the media, including The Wire.
Deputy Inspector General of Police, South Kashmir, Rayees Muhammad Bhat said that the attack was carried out by terrorists and they will be “tracked down soon”. “We are investigating the case swiftly. We will track down the terrorists involved in the killing and neutralise them soon,” he said.
The shooting is the last in a long line of attacks on civilians in 2022. It took place barely 50 metres from Sanjay’s home in Achan village of south Kashmir’s Pulwama district. The two-storey house has been provided with round-the-clock security by the J&K administration following a string of targeted killings of Kashmiri Pandits over the last more than two years.
The Pulwama Kashmiri Collective went to Achan and met Sanjay Sharma’s family. A candle light vigil this evening.
These are from Pulwama civil society candle light vigil against the killing of Sanjay Sharma yesterday
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