Just two days ago, 15-year-old Andleeb sat for her term-end examinations. Today, she is dead. Shot down by bullets fired by Army patrol officers. She was not a stone-thrower. She was a student, trying to get an education, in Hawoora village in Kulgam, Kashmir.

“Andleeb’s results are yet unannounced, she wrote her exams just two days back,” her inconsolable father Ali Muhammad Elahi, a farmer by profession says. A day ahead of her killing, Elahi had told Andleeb to get her name on her last year’s marks certificate corrected.

“I never knew she will not survive another day,” he says.

Born on April 3, 2003, Andleeb was a student at Akbarabad Middle School Hawoora where she moved after passing her primary classes from Mustafa Memorial Institution, Hawoora. Andleeb is the youngest of three siblings. Her two older sisters, Ruhi Jan (22) and Khusboo Jan (18) studied with her in the same school. “A class topper, she was also regular at the local Darasgah (seminary) and memorised parts of the holy Quran by heart, and persuaded friends to attend the seminary too,” Elahi says.

According to the Andleeb’s family, a stone-throwing incident had taken place at Asthan Mohalla, around a kilometre from Hawoora.

“Our village youth did not throw even a single stone at the Army, but when they reached our village, they took out the anger of stone-throwers of Asthan Mohalla on our village youth by killing three,” Elahi says about the killing of his daughter Andleeb, her cousin Shakir Ahmed (22) and Irshad Majid (21) on July 7, 2018. The shooting happened outside Andleeb and Shakir’s home. It has been reported that Irshad Majid, was a labourer working outside their home who was shot by the Army patrol officers.

However, Army spokesman RK Pandey says, “When our Area Domination Patrol (ADP) came under stone-throwing, we fired bullets in self-defence.” Explaining how three civilians were killed in Army firing, he says, “It was a normal domination patrol of three to four vehicles led by an Army officer and there was no specific information about militants when a crowd of around 400 to 500 people started throwing stones at our men, some of whom were injured.”

Pandey says the Army fired only a few rounds of bullets only because they were provoked.

“The Army doesn’t open fire unless provoked but if a crowd of 200 throws stones at you, then you are in a precarious situation,” he says, terming the civilian killings at the hands of Army a “one-sided story”. He also states that the Jammu and Kashmir Police have ordered an inquiry into the incident and that people should wait for the findings.

“The girl was not part of the stone-throwers, but we have to say that the Army fired in self-defence,” he says.

Today, Hawoora village is in a state of mourning while a complete shutdown was observed for the fourth straight day. As hundreds thronged the house of Andleeb, Elahi was sitting inside a large tent where he was receiving people coming for condolences. Andleeb was the maternal cousin of Shakir, the first one of the three to fall to the Army’s bullets.

“When the Army directly fired at Shakir, just outside our house, Andleeb with other friends and two of her sisters came running out her house to give water to the fallen Shakir – but the Army fired at her directly and shot her in the thigh,” Elahi says.

According to the family, while Andleeb lay bleeding for over 20 minutes, the Army refused to allow anyone to go near her body and kept firing over her body. They say it was only after the Army left the spot, that some locals took Andleeb on foot up to Mushipora Bridge from where she was taken on a scooter to Primary Health Centre (PHC) Frisal.

The road leading to Andleeb’s home in Hawoora

“During the 45-minute commute, she lost a lot of blood,” Elahi says. “Had the school not been closed, she would never have returned home and never left us alone,” he says.

The family members claim that it was the Charlie Company of the Army who shot at and killed Andleeb and two other youngsters. “Apart from killing the three, they also ransacked Andleeb’s house,” Elahi claims.

Draped in a green flag with thousands of mourners attending her funeral prayers, Andleeb was laid to rest at her ancestral graveyard in Hawoora, just a few hundred meters from her school and home. The family will now wait for the inquiry into the shooting – and mourn the death of two of their children.