Braid Cutting

Mentally unsound person thrashed after mistaken as ‘braid chopper’

Sopore: A mentally challenged person, after being mistaken as a braid chopper was beaten up in the Sopore area of Baramulla district on Friday.

According to reports, clashes erupted after police rescued the mentally challenged person identified as Waseem Ahmed of Nawpora.

Reports said that police lobbed teargas shells to disperse the youth who were pelting stones at them in Fruit Mandi area. Four civilians were reportedly injured during the clashes. They were shifted to Sub-district hospital for treatment.

Earlier, locals said an alleged braid chopper was nabbed after he was “moving suspiciously” in Mazbug area around 3am.

“He was ruthlessly beaten by the crowd,” they said.

However, the family members of the ‘alleged braid chopper’ said that he lost his mental balance after the death of his mother.

“Since then, he keeps on wandering during night hours,” family members told a local daily Greater Kashmir.

Braids of more than a 100 women has been chopped off in the past two months. Not a single person has been nabbed in connection with the crimes. Police, on the contrary balmes the local populace for not cooperating with them.

Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti who after a 100 braid chopping incidents broke her silence and called it an attempt to create mass hysteria. She added that it was an attempt to undermine the dignity of women.

Her cabinet minister Altaf Bukhari, who is the Education Minister touted the who thing as ‘Mass Hysteria’ and an attempt to divert children from education.

The Opposition and the Resistance leaders have been castigating the government on a daily basis for failing to stop the incidents and ‘protecting the honour of mothers and sisters’.

In a statement on Thursday, the Joint Resistance Leadership ‘warned’ the authorities that if the attacks don’t stop they will launch a ‘peoples’ movement’. They had also called for peaceful protests against braid chopping after Friday prayers.

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