Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Ministers Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah on Sunday demanded an investigation into allegations by Pulwama residents that Army personnel entered a mosque and forced them to chant “Jai Shri Ram”.
A resident of Zadoora village in Pulwama told Scroll that around 1.30 am on Saturday, an Army patrol ordered some villagers to come out of their homes.
“After that, they also asked us to wake up few other villagers as well,” the resident said. “According to Army officials, they were doing the exercise in order to show new recruits how to carry out cordon and search operations.”
During azaan for the early morning prayer, the soldiers entered one of the village mosque and asked the muezzin – the person who calls for the prayers – to chant “Jai Shri Ram”, a villager told The Indian Express.
The person who spoke to Scroll claimed that the Army personnel had also shouted these slogans.
Few minutes later, “Jai Shri Ram” slogans were heard from another mosque in the village. “Those of us who were outside heard these slogans clearly,” the resident told Scroll. “A group of civilians some metres far from me were also forced to shout these slogans. But since they refused, four of them were beaten up badly.”
The villager said the incident took place in front of an Army major, who was leading a group of 40 or 50 soldiers. The villager also claimed that the major seemed like he was drunk.
He added that while the Army’s nocturnal crackdown in the village was a weekly affair, this was the first time that such an incident occurred.
The Army and the Jammu and Kashmir Police have not issued a statement about the allegations. But they have not denied them so far.
On Saturday, Mufti wrote in a tweet that the case was shocking and an investigation should be conducted into the matter.
Abdullah wrote that the incident was “deeply distressing”.
“It’s bad enough they entered but then forcing people to chant slogans like “Jai Shree Ram” as reported by the locals there, is unacceptable,” he tweeted.
Altaf Ahmad Bhat, the chairperson of a civil society group in Zadoora, told The Telegraph that senior Army officers apologised to the villagers on Sunday. The Army major has also been removed, the officers told Bhat, who said he was in the mosque on Saturday.
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