The photo had gone viral on WhatsApp and was mistaken as the photo of the victim killed today during an encounter at Anantnag
Srinagar: India Today, a leading news channel on Saturday picked up a viral picture of a girl and passed it off as the 41-year old woman killed today in the ongoing encounter in Anantnag.
The picture is of 21-year old Yasmeena Akhtar of Damhal Hanjipora who was shot dead by forces from point blank range in South Kashmir’s Kulgam district.
The said photo is being circulated on WhatsApp and the ‘leading news channel’, without cross checking, picked up the picture and used it as the picture of the slain woman killed today.
Mehbooba Mufti in a press conference along with Home Minister Rajnath Singh had in famously said that “The youth killed in Damhal Hanjipora hadn’t gone to Army camp to get toffee or milk. All those killed had attacked camps or police posts.”
However, it was Yasmeena who died that day. She was was on the lookout of her younger brother.
According to a report in Greater Kashmir, as protests intensified after the killing of Hizb Commander Burhan Wani in 2016, Yaseema found that her brother was not home.
“At around 10 a.m. my daughter found out that her brother had left home. As protests against the killing of militant commander Burhan Wani had erupted in whole town, she got worried and took her cousin sister along to search for her brother,” says Yasmeena’s father Abdur Rehman Wani.
“We both had already left to tend to our vegetable garden, which is situated half a kilometer away,” he says, pointing at his wife sitting nearby, “Otherwise we would not have let her go out. I would have myself gone to look for my son.”
