GM Stadium: Tufail’s last journey

The stadium in the heart of Old City is no longer just a playing ground. Now it is remembered as a place where Tufail was shot at last year. Aalia Shaikh revisits the stadium a year after the teen's death.

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)

I am a stone pelter. Who are you?

FIRST PERSON

------- and what else can I do to express my resistance against oppression, writes Imran Muhammad Gazi an MBA student.

I have been shot in the ribs. I am on a stretcher in an emergency ward of a city hospital. Who am I? I am a stone pelter from a busy commercial area of Srinagar. This is my comprehensive introduction, no need to have a name, surname, qualification and profession. Just one word sums up my personality "Stone Pelter". I am not that educated but some of my educated peers tell me I have always been in news right from 1931. You will find me everywhere, i have stood the test of time, leaders have changed slogans have changed but I have not. Yes there was a time when I was sidelined, and gun wielding elders occupied the centre stage.


Situation has changed and I am again in business in urban Kashmir, Ragda 2008 restored my lost glory, you called it a revolution, I watched spell bound vast multitude of people filling the streets of Kashmir, it was on that day at historic Eidgah, the gun wielding elder passed the baton on to me and with a smile on his lip and tear in his eye said” your turn mate”. I still don’t know why those tears in the eyes of the elder, perhaps I am too young to understand this.
You can find me on any street of urban Kashmir, although I have some favourite spots, I love jamia Masjid and Maisuma, old town Varmul, Sopur, and Malakhnag Islamabad to name a few. You can easily recognize me as I am the best dressed youth of my area, trendy jeans, smart sports shoe, whacky jacket and few fashion accessories, they say I buy them from the money I get for stone pelting. My income is being discussed everywhere and there is no unanimity on that it varies from 100 to2500,at times I am afraid that I may be brought under income tax net. My attire has little to do with fashion, and more with the nature of my job, I am supposed to be athletic and nimble footed and I have to mingle with the crowds, hence my attire. Ideal day at work is thrilling and exciting, the suspense, the drama, the surge and the chase is right out of 80s blockbuster Hindi cinema.

I dodged shells and bullets, ala Rajnikanth, only difference is there is no retake on the street, either you dodge in first take or you are down in the gutter. Stone pelting used to be an art but with the passage of time it has developed into a science, it is more because of those chocolate pelters, some of whom are students of best schools of Srinagar. Purists moan the adulteration; pragmatists call it the need of the hour. These chocolates talk about projectile motion, angle of projection and range, I don’t get a bit of that. They introduced “sling”, whatever oldies may say it is an effective combat weapon. I have not talked about my adversary ,most of the time it is the “Ponde police” sorry local police, it is an honour to have such an enemy in the battlefield, the most professional and business savvy police force in the world, highly well versed with economics. Such is the level of efficiency that they no longer waste bullets on us but use teargas shells for dual purpose of chasing and killing us, you can not blame them after all world is going through a recession and cost cutting is the mantra. They perfected this technique under there former boss, whose name was a tongue twister for us, we remember him as Asif Mujtabha the paki batsmen. He was a brilliant officer, disciplinarian, had a penchant for cleanliness, smoothly killed almost sixty of us in a span of few weeks, yet you could not see a speck of blood on his hands nor his immaculately worn uniform, as I told u spick and span. He treated us like his kids, ensured we did not suffer any pain or agony, bullets hit us, either on head or chest, he was such a noble loving and caring father. We miss him, they transferred him, must have been promoted, I feel good at least our blood helped someone to make a career.
Why do I pelt stones, this thought had never crossed my mind, I just instinctively new when I had to don the armour and start the battle. It was only after Ragda 2008, I heard some whispers, hushed tones, and few glances of suspicion on the street. I am street smart, I realized I am not the darling of the masses anymore, people who fed me with (Teher) even in the midst of the battle, now hated me. I should have seen this coming, it all started with the fatherly police chief Asif Mujtaba, quoting Hadith against stone pelting, learned man he is, after securing our (duniyah) worldly life, he immediately focused his attention to secure our (akhirat) life here after. We miss him; he was our real benefactor, trying to ensure us peace in this world as well as other world.

A (molvi saheb) priest who calls himself a Puritan, and who lead many processions in Ragda2008, seconded the view and said the hadith is from Bukhari shareef, it was a bolt from the blue (nabi trath) for me, same molvi used to quote Bukhari shareef in 1990s and would read out from Babul jihad (Chapter on jihad) why this hadith was never read to us until now. What had changed, Bukhari Shareef or Molvi Sahib, it was for the first time and not the last time that I have wept, yes warm tears flowed not from my eyes but the stone cold heart of a stone pelter. I wiped my tears, with my rough hands and yes mourning the death of conscience of our Ulema I did what I knew best, yes I pelted stones mocking at the simplicity of the molvi sahib.

A columnist picked up the thread from were the molvi left, writing smoothly with his “LEFT HAND “. He mocked at my lack of education, it is easy to doge the bullet than a writer’s pen I was pinned to the ground, argument lost. There is a saying in Kashmiri (Asoolus kyah kari ghulam rasool).I don’t know the English meaning of this as I am a petty stone pelter. Agreed I am not educated, but my journo brother is, if he is writing today it is because of me who is fighting in the street for the very honour he is trying to defend sitting in his study with a laptop on the table and Coffee Mug in his hand. His colleague who shot frames was shot in broad daylight; he could not get an FIR registered. I did what I knew best, and yes I pelted stones in protest against this cowardice of the police. Street is my school, and this is what I have been taught. Get an FIR registered for your colleague with your university degree in hand and we will talk my brother. Intelligentsia scorn me, to them I am a ruffian, and they refer to me as the lumpen proletariat. They are all learned scholars, poets, linguists, writers; they are mirror of our society.

When I and my friends were slaughtered on the streets some Rahi lost his way in the commotion, and found himself in a hall were some Gyan Peeth award was given to him by someone whose hands were smeared with our dirty blood. He accepted the award with hands folded in benediction, feeling at last he has found his way not knowing Rahi has been lost in wilderness forever. When men of intellect stoop so low I do what I know best, yes I pelt stones in despair. I have one question for all you learned men. Do those Shawls of honour have smell of our blood and warmth of the breath of a dying stone pelter? By the way was it not the proletariat who brought a revolution, an old news paper I found with” Sulla Masala” talks about that.

Enough of arguments, after all I am a stone pelter I can not win an argument with you, for you are learned men. It is clear to me my countrymen that I am an impediment to your progress, it pains me, I don’t want you to be backward, I want you to prosper. What then is the solution? I can not stoop to your level nor can you rise to my level. Don’t you worry I have a solution. Let there be a role reversal for a day, you be the stone pelters and we the perennial stone pelters the target. I will gather all my friends at Eidgah and you stone us to death, we will take all your stones with a smile on our lips and a tear in our eyes, smile we will for your prosperity and tears will roll, for we won’t be there to see the smile on your lips when you achieve your prosperity. Having stoned us don’t you think you won, it is we who have won for once from masters of inaction you have become men of action, and did not we pelt stones all our lives just to make
you act.

One last request my countrymen, please do not make a graveyard for us, for you will make a ritual of visiting it every year along with our respected leaders , who will come separately, as they come to our funerals individually, strange not even our blood unites them. They say unity is possible only on principles, true how can blood of a stone pelter or chastity and honour of a common Kashmiri woman be a principle to unite on, and it must be some high principle. Even if you bury us don’t ever visit our graves for old habits don’t die we will rise from our graves and pelt stones on sight of a Hypocrite. Tell my mother I will miss her, for I had two Homes Street and her lap, and yes her lap was comforting but it was the street that was my calling.

As everything in the hospital room is becoming hazy and death is waiting to embrace me, I remember a couplet by some Iqbal, I read on the back of an auto rickshaw of a fellow stone pelter.

jis khak Ke Zameer Main ho Atish Chinar
Mumkin Naheen Ki Sard Ho Woh khake Arjmund.
Is it true my country………….

(Imran Muhammad Gazi is an MBA Pass-out Kashmir University. Feedback at gaziimran@yahoo.com)

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