It was not the first visit of 22 years old Lieutenant Umar Fayaz to his native district, but he used to visit Valley frequently and never he was touched by anyone. If family members are to be believed, Umar used to visit his native village after every two or three months and this practice continued since 2012, the year he passed the National Defence Academy examination.The bullet riddled body of Umar was found in Harmain village of South Kashmir’s Shopian district on Wednesday morning.Hailing from Sudsoonu village of Kulgam district, Umar was a student of JNU Aishmuqam. “He secured 96% marks in class 12th examination in 2011. He was a genius and fond of sports. He was elder to his two sisters,” said his relative Muhammad Ashraf to CNS.Posted in Jammu and Kashmir’s Akhnoor sector, the officer trained at the National Defence Academy near Pune and the Indian Military Academy in Dehradun before being commissioned on December 10, 2016.
“We were at home when Umar went to his maternal home at Batapora Shopian to attend the marriage ceremony of one of his cousins. His maternal uncle Muhammad Maqbool has four daughters and one of them was supposed to get married on the day, when his bullet riddled body was found. Nobody knew instead of celebrating the marriage of Maqbool’s daughter we will mourn the death of Umar,” Ashraf said.Umar was part of 2 Rajputana Rifles of Indian Army. “Believe it or not, we were unaware of this fact that Umar is a Lieutenant in Indian Army. We only knew he is a doctor working outside Kashmir,” said a group of neighbours mourning the death of Umar Fayaz.In 2012, news spread in the area that Umar has qualified some NDA examination. He was in fact called by army personnel from Behibagh camp and was airlifted to Delhi. Since then, nobody bothered about him and his nature of job,” said a middle aged man. (CNS)