SRINAGAR: The daughter of Srinagar’s slain pharmicist Makhan Lal Bindroo paid tribute to her ‘warrior’ father and challenged his assassins to appear for a face-to-face debate.
“Today my father is no more. But still I have a smiling face. I know my father was a warrior. He was a winner. He is living. He is going like a warrior,” said a charged up Dr Shraddha Bindroo.
“I am not going to shed tears. If I shed tears, it will be a tribute to the gunmen who killed my father. I will salute my father and he was a real warrior, a gem of a human being and a hardworking person.”
Makhan Lal Bindroo, 68, was shot dead by militants at his shop at Srinagar’s Iqbal Park area on Tuesday evening. He was among the few Kashmiri Pandits who had not left his home even when the militancy erupted in 1990.
“I am an associate professor, I started from zero. My father started from a bicycle, my brother is a famous diabetologist, my mother sits on the shop — that is what Makhan Lal Bindroo made us. A Kashmiri Pandit, he will never die. Despite being a Hindu, I have read the Quran. You can only kill the body but not the spirit. Bindroo will be alive in the spirit,” said Shraddha.
“My father gave me education and politicians gave you guns and stones. You want to fight with guns and stones? That is all cowardice. All politicians are using you, come in front and fight with education,” she said.
“If you have courage, come and have a debate with us. Have a face-to-face debate. Then we will see what you are. You can only pelt stones and shoot people from behind. Come and face me, I am my father’s daughter.”
Shraddha asserted she and her family were not scared, saying a person dies only once.
Bindroo’s son Dr Siddharth Bindroo said despite his father being a pharmacy owner, he made a name for himself.
“He was a man of principles and never did anything that was unethical. ... Everybody loved and respected him.”
Jammu Outfits fume at Pakistan
Several organisations representing the Kashmiri Pandits and some outfits staged anti-Pakistan protests over the killing of civilians by terrorists in Jammu.
They demanded enhanced security for the Kashmiri Pandits.
Hurriyat deplores civilian Killings
The Hurriyat Conference, led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, on Wednesday expressed grief over the killing of Bindroo and two others.
It urged global community to intervene in putting an end to the daily violence and loss of lives.