Bindroo’s daughter says "if you have courage, face me"

Ground Report | New Delhi: Bindroo’s daughter; After three civilians were killed by an unknown gunman in separate incidents in Jammu and Kashmir yesterday, the daughter of one of the victims, Makhan Lal Bindroo, on Wednesday said that the man responsible for the crime has opened the doors of hell.

Bindroo’s daughter

Describing the deceased ML Bindroo, a pharmacist, as a 'wonderful person, Shraddha Bindoo said, "He served Kashmir and Kashmiriyat. His body is gone but his soul is still alive." "The person responsible for the crime has opened the doors of hell for himself," she said.

Bindroo's physiotherapist daughter Shraddha Bindru got married a few years back. Apparently shaken by this incident, Shraddha said shortly before her father's funeral, "ML Bindroo is not dead. His spirit will live on. Those who shot him, come and argue with us in front of us. I have read the Quran. I have read (the holy book of Islam) which says that souls do not die. I have challenged the killers to argue and I am sure they will not gain any position by such killings."

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Bindroo was shot outside his shop Bindroo Health Zone near Iqbal Park in Srinagar. Minutes after his killing, terrorists shot a roadside vendor identified as Virendra Paswan, a resident of Bhagalpur in Bihar. Around the same time, terrorists shot and killed Mohammad Shafi Lone at Naidkhai in north Kashmir's Bandipora district.

A surge in killings by suspected terrorists after two other civilians were shot dead in Srinagar last Saturday has put the security establishment on alert.

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According to officials, the Bindroo family had stayed in Srinagar despite the peak of militancy in the 1990s and most members of the Kashmiri Pandit community had left the Valley. Bindroo Health Zone was opened a few years back.

Political reaction

Scores of people, including National Conference President Dr Farooq Abdullah and Apni Party founder Syed Altaf Bukhari, visited the home of slain pharmacist Makhan Lal Bindoo on Wednesday to express solidarity with the family.

Bindroo was shot dead by unidentified gunmen late last evening outside his shop located near Iqbal Park in Srinagar.

Farooq Abdullah said that his killing shook the entire Kashmir community as the deceased was a gentleman and helpful to the people. "He never left the Kashmir Valley and stayed back even when militancy was at its peak," he said.

State Youth President and Mayor Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) Junaid Azim Mattoo along with his party President Syed Mohammad Altaf Bukhari also visited Bindru's house in Indira Nagar Sonwar.

Bukhari said that Mr. Bindroo was a great man who continued to serve the people of the Valley by providing them health services even in difficult times. His murder is a huge tragedy that cannot be described in words.

He said the forces opposing peace are bent on creating a rift between the communities which have a history of pluralistic ethos and who have been living in harmony in Jammu and Kashmir for centuries.

His party youth president Junaid Azim Mattoo also expressed deep grief over the incident and expressed solidarity with the Bindru family, his friends, relatives, and acquaintances.

Uncle was also killed but did not leave Kashmir

Bindroo is one of the nearly five thousand Kashmiri Pandits who, unlike other Pandit families, decided not to migrate from the Valley. According to police, Bindroo's uncle was murdered outside his shop in old Srinagar by extremists in the 1990s, yet he decided to stay here.

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