Eleven days after he was shot at by suspected militants, Akash Mehra, the 22-year-old son of the proprietor of a preferred eatery in Srinagar, died in hospital on Sunday.
On the night of February 17, the dhaba was stuffed to capability when two masked males barged in with pistols. They went straight to the money counter, the place Akash was sitting, and shot him from point-blank vary. Akash was hit within the stomach.
The dhaba and some others within the extremely guarded Sonawar neighbourhood of Srinagar have been shut because the assault.
“His (Akash’s) condition worsened on Thursday and he was put on life support,” stated a physician at Srinagar’s Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital, the place Akash had been admitted.
A day after the assault, police arrested three males, who, they stated, had been instructed by a South Kashmir-based Lashkar-e-Toiba militant to hold out the assault. “One of the reasons for targeting the dhaba owner is that he belongs to Jammu and is Hindu,” Inspector General of Police (IGP) Vijay Kumar stated on February 18. “The aim (of the attackers) could have been to disturb communal harmony.”
Barely a couple of hundred metres from the United Nations Observers workplace in Srinagar, Krishna Dhaba is in style amongst vacationers and has for a lot of many years been the tackle for vegetarian meals within the metropolis.
The Mehras, who initially hail from Jammu, are stated to have been cautious about holding native sensibilities in thoughts.
So every time separatists known as for a shutdown, the dhaba would down its shutters, even when it was throughout peak vacationer season and whilst some native retailers round it stayed open. Through a few of Kashmir’s most troubled years within the Nineties and 2000s, the dhaba could be abuzz within the evenings.
On Sunday, former chief ministers Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti have been amongst those that expressed their condolences.
