By: Aalia Sheikh
The word stadium evokes vision of a vast ground encircled by stands, and young boys playing. But the Gani Memorial Stadium in Rajouri Kadal of old city is not just another playing field. For Kashmiris, the circular ground has become a testimony to the blood of Tufail Matoo spilled on its field last year.
An angled fligh of steps leads to the ground from the Rajouri Kadal road. The gate walls left behind give a sense of enclosure from the streets outside. But it’s an uncomfortable enclosure - like a shroud cocooning a body. It’s claustrophobic.
Boys play cricket between the goal posts at two ends of the stadium. Among the players are cattle grazing in the field. But one corner of the ground is devoid of any life. No one goes near it. Even vegetation has deserted it. This desolate spot is where Tufail Ashraf Mattoo, 17, was killed in government forces' action on June 11, last year.
Gazing at the death spot is Shafiq, a local. In his late-twenties, he was a regular here, and would spend hours with his friends playing here. “It has been a year since I entered this stadium, although it is right outside my house,” he says. Like him, many other boys have abandoned playing in the stadium. They have seen Tufail dying here.
Leading the way to his home, Shafiq informs that his mother, Arifa, is the sole 'official eye-witness' in the case. A wall, a short walkway, is all that separates the house from the Stadium. The living room on the ground floor, however, is like an extension of the ground itself. The same claustrophobia engulfs it.
Arifa enters the room with an air of uncertainty. Over fifty-year old, she appears haggard and tiredness emanates from her eyes. Despite a hot summer day, the windows that open towards the Stadium are shut tight. “It was 11th June, a Friday. There was a loud bang,” Arifa recalls, imitating the loud sound.
The boom, that many people in the vicinity thought to be of a grenade explosion, 'was actually the sound of a tear gas shell being fired'. The firing was preceded by hooting sounds coming from the street outside. Young boys were jeering at the police and paramilitary forces deployed at Rajouri Kadal, echoing protests happening in many other parts of the old city.
Moments before hearing the explosion, Arifa saw three young boys running towards the stadium from the Saeed Sahab shrine side. “Two of them entered the grounds and shut the gate behind them. But the third one was still left outside,” she recalls.
As the two boys saw another boy running towards them, followed by 'two Jammu & Kashmir Police (JKP) officers', they opened the gate and beckoned for him to enter. However, they did not wait for him to join them and ran away as fast as they could. The third boy who was closely being chased by the men in uniform was Tufail.
“Tufail entered the gate but couldn’t go too far as he slipped on the mud. Two JKP officers came out of the Gypsy and followed him to the ground,” recalls Arifa. They were hurling abuses at him in Kashmiri, saying ‘We will not leave you.’
"The officers aimed at Tufail from a close range and fired a tear gas shell straight at him. The shell hit him in the back of his head. He fell, face forward, on the ground. The officers went near the prostrate body," she claims. But the loud bang brought out people from their home
s and 'they ran away'.“The fired shell shattered Tufail’s skull and killed him instantly,” Arifa says, ch oking back tears. Tufail, who was returning from the tuition class, had a school bag strapped on. His le ft hand had grass clutched from the mud beneath, which he had uprooted in his death throes. In his right hand a five rupee coin was found - it was the fare to travel back home.
Pieces of his brain were found scattered around him. Locals picked them up and buried them in a corner, which has now become a memorial for the slain boy.
What she witnessed that day moved Arifa to act in a way she would never have imagined. In her words, she managed to catch hold of the right arm of the officer who had fired at the boy and started slapping his face. Another officer, who had ordered the former to shoot, pushed her to the ground and freed his sub-ordinate from her grip, she says. They escaped in the same white Gypsy they had arrived in.
On seeing Tufail dead, she lost her nerves and took out her dupatta, tied it on her hand, and waved it over as a signal for others. And then she repeatedly called out: ‘O people, please come out from your homes. An innocent boy has been martyred...’
While there were many others who witnessed the gory killing, Arifa was the only one who dared to testify in the court. Thus far she has gone for identification parades, identified the
culprits. “Everything is so clear. They are stretching the case for no reason. I just want his family to get justice. I am tired of fighting now,” she says angrily.She has been living under the shadow of Tufail’s death for the past one year. But the evasive justice has made her skeptical. She has stopped going to the police station. She no longer attends parades.
In the stadium, a small child, all of seven, is cleaning the headstone of the burial place where Tufail’s brain pieces lay buried. On being asked what is in there, he says, “Tufail Mattoo! They shot him in the head.” This is what he knows, and keeps repeating to anyone who visits this quasi-shrine.
Young boys slowly trickle out of the gates as the sun comes down on the Gani Memorial stadium. At approximately the same time, this place was a death scene a year ago, and will remain so forever.
(Names of people have been changed on request)
