Deputy Superintendent of Police Ayub Pandith, who was lynched in Srinagar, lived at Nowpora, in the immediate neighbourhood of the city’s Grand Mosque and people in the locality knew him. But when the 50-year-old said this to the lynch mob that gathered around him on Thursday night, they didn’t believe him and kept pelting stones at him until he was dead.

According to police, Pandith had been posted at the mosque to augment the security of hundreds of worshippers observing the holiest night of the Muslim calendar called the Lailatul Qadr (Night of Destiny).  He was on “Access Control Duty” heading a team of police personnel in civvies, who frisked people entering the mosque, a routine security practice at big religious gatherings.

“In the middle of the night as he came out of the mosque to make a call, some people followed him and asked him questions,” police sources said, citing the preliminary investigation in the incident. “One of the persons allegedly accused him of torturing him in custody which was not true as the officer has not been a part of law and order. Nor was he into investigations or anti-militancy operations. He worked with the security wing of the police.”

But Pandith’s protestations that he was doing his routine duty didn’t wash with the angry mob around him, which allegedly accused him of being an intelligence agent as he was reportedly clicking pictures and making videos of the worshippers.

“They started hitting him. Stripped him naked and pushed him down. With his life under threat, Pandith took out his pistol and fired in the air. But when mob refused to budge, he fired at the legs of some of his tormentors. Three were hit,” the sources said. “But far from running away, the mob stood its ground, now more violent. They brought rocks and threw them at him, some stones hit his head. He lost consciousness and soon died from excessive blood loss.  The body was lying there for an hour before it was removed,” they said.

Pandith’s security guards are alleged to have run away as the mob pounced on him, finding it too large for them to handle.

Pandith has two children. His daughter, who is doing her MBBS, had returned home to celebrate Eid with the family, and his son, who was brought to identify his father, is said to have fainted.

“He was not very well-known even in the police department. He was a very gentle, honest and a self-effacing man,” sources said. “He would mostly be in civvies as the personnel in security are not required to be in uniform during their duty.”

Police has so far arrested two youths for having taken part in the lynching. Director General of Police  SP Vaid affirmed that the perpetrators of the atrocity “will face the law”.

“The official was killed by the mob while he was performing his duties. It’s a very sad and unfortunate incident,” he added.

Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti termed the lynching shameful. “Isse bada sharmnaak vakya koi ho nahin sakta (There is nothing more atrocious than this).”

Hurriyat moderate faction chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who leads the Friday prayers at the Grand Mosque and delivers sermons on the religious occasions like Lailatul Qadr, was also forthright in his condemnation. “Deeply disturbed and condemn the brutal act at Nowhatta. Mob violence and public lynching is outside the parameters of our values and religion,” tweeted Mirwaiz. “We cannot allow state brutality to snatch our humanity and values,” he said.

The Mirwaiz had come to the mosque to deliver his sermon past midnight. This is for the first time that a mob has lynched a person in Kashmir and is, therefore, a new low in the Kashmir situation.

Though there have been killings of some people during protests earlier also, like the death of a passer-by after being hit by a stone last year,  they have been accidents rather than a killing.

The lynching generated outrage on social media too. “Act of stoning DySp Ayub Pandith in Nowhatta is barbaric & ghastly,” wrote political commentator Gowhar Geelani on Twitter.

“Mob lynching reaches Kashmir, I am ashamed,” tweeted one Mir Burhan.

People see the development as yet another instance of the fast deteriorating situation in Kashmir. And for many, the lynching underlines the brutalisation of Kashmiri society due to the constant exposure to extreme violence.

The author can be contacted on Twitter @waniriyaz.