2 years on, Valley’s ‘human shield’ is on poll duty

SRINAGAR: Farooq Ahmad Dar, the man used as a “human shield” during the 2017 bypolls by an Army team to make its way safely through Budgam past stone-pelting mobs, was on poll duty two years on.
Dar (28), now a sweeper in the state health department, was posted at a polling station in Budgam in central Kashmir on Thursday.
Photos and videos of Farooq tied to the bonnet of an Army jeep had gone viral. He was picked up at Gampora village in Beerwah when he was returning home on his bike from his sister’s house on April 9 that year, his elder brother Fayaz said. Farooq had, earlier that morning, cast his vote at Cheill-Brass polling station in a middle school, he added. “What was my mistake? Going to the polling booth and casting my ballot?” Dar had told PTI last year.
At Ultigam, nearly 40 km from the Srinagar city, the incident is still fresh in the minds of the locals. After the polls opened at the polling station, only two of the registered 1,016 voters had cast ballots in the first 100 minutes. Farooq’s mother Fazi Begum told PTI her son was appointed as a daily wage employee and has been on election duty since Wednesday.
Asked if members of her family had cast their votes, she said, “I almost lost my son due to voting two years ago. Do you think we will go to vote again?”
Ultigam residents allege the stone-pelting was in response to “unprovoked harassment” of locals. Nazir Ahmad, a local resident, told PTI the stone-pelting was intense, which probably forced Major Leetul Gogoi to catch hold of Dar and use him as a human shield. “He (Farooq) is not even from our village. He is from Cheill-Brass, 15km from here. That incident has brought only unwanted attention from all sides to our village. If we vote, it is a problem and if we do not vote, it is a problem,” he said.
Making sense of 2019 #ElectionswithtimesView Full Coverage