Srinagar: Strife-torn Kashmir is on the edge after a trucker, who was set ablaze by a mob over the rumours of cow killing in Udhampur, succumbed to injuries in Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital on Sunday.
Zahid Ahmad Bhat had received 70 per cent burns after a petrol bomb was hurled on the Kashmir-bound truck near Shiv Nagar on the Srinagar-Jammu highway on the intervening night of October 9 and 10. Bhat’s associate Showkat Ahmad Dar, who had received 40 per cent burns, is currently under treatment in the Safdarjung Hospital.
The attack had come just days after carcasses of the cows were found in Udhampur district. The district administration and the cow owner later ruled out any foul play and concluded that the bovines had died a natural death.
Zahid’s death is the third reported murder in the last three weeks over beef-related rumours, after Dadri and Saharanpur incidents.