Srinagar: A Kulgam villager is undergoing treatment at the Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences in Srinagar, after an ordeal in which he says he was attacked by a bear in a cave after allegedly having been forced to act as a human shield by the army.Speaking with The Wire from his hospital bed Mohammad Jahangir Malik recounted what happened on May 13. The Wire has reached out to the Army’s Srinagar-based spokesperson for comment. This story will be updated when a response is received.On that day, Malik said that a team of 9 Rashtriya Rifles (RR) along with other security personnel laid a siege around his native Khull village in Damhal Hanjipora area of Kulgam, purportedly in the search of militants.Malik said that in the course of the operation, he and around 10 youngsters were detained and hauled into a pickup truck in the presence of former sarpanch of Khull village, Mohammad Ayub Malik. The former sarpanch told The Wire that he was assured by an unidentified army officer that the men were only needed to show the way up the mountain and would be returned to their families shortly.In a while, Jahangir Malik said, they realised that they were going to become human shields, a practice prohibited by International Humanitarian Law and classified as a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.After hiking up a mountain on the outskirts of Khull village, Malik said that the army team split into several units – each with a civilian in tow.Malik said that he was then handed a smartphone linked to a soldier’s phone via video call, given a torch, and ordered by a soldier to go in and scan a dark mountain cave.“I told him it was a natural cave and that there could be wild animals inside, and possibly no oxygen,” Malik recalled. “But the soldier hurled abuses at me and ordered me to go in anyway.”The soldier, Malik noted, kept his distance from the cave, wary, it appears, of militants lurking inside the very darkness he was forcing a civilian to enter.Within two minutes of entering the cave, a wild bear pounced on him, said Malik. He had no way out because the cave sat on the steep face of a mountain and there was nowhere to run.“The weight of the bear as it pinned me down was enormous. I couldn’t move,” Malik said.“It went for my face but I used both hands to push it away. Then I found some courage, made a move and as a result, the bear lost its balance and went over the cliff.”Malik said that the bear had torn away the flesh of his leg and ripped off a portion of his scalp. His face was so severely mauled it had to be reconstructed through plastic surgery. He also sustained injuries to his arm as he fought to break free from the animal’s grip.Despite being put through a life-threatening situation, Malik appreciated the army’s prompt response in the aftermath of the attack.“They [army soldiers] got me down without wasting time, strapped me to a stretcher and called in their own ambulance after which I was taken to a hospital in Kulgam. From there, I was referred to SKIMS. I have gone through two surgeries so far,” he said.Dr Adil Hafeez, who heads the department of plastic surgery at SKIMS said that Malik had suffered multiple injuries on head, face, leg and other body parts.“His scalp had a severe injury but thankfully there was no brain injury. There was a fracture in his left leg which was operated on,” he said.Asked whether the injuries were consistent with the attack of a bear, Hafeez replied: “Of course. In 99% cases of bear attacks, we have seen that the victim has injuries on the face which was also the case with Malik”.Mohammad Jahangir Malik’s medical records. Photo: Jehangir Ali.‘What do they receive the training for, then?’Malik is father to a seven-year-old and works as a clerk at a private school in Damhal Hanjipora.Sitting on a stool beside her wounded husband’s bed, Sami Jan said that the army personnel knocked on their door soon after fajr (morning) prayers on May 13.“My son started crying and my mother-in-law urged them to let him go but they asked us to stay inside. We thought they would release him soon,” she said.At around 11 am, Sami was returning home from the market when the former sarpanch halted his scooter on the road beside her, “He asked me to hop on, saying that Jehangir had been injured and we had to go to the hospital. My heart skipped a beat and I feared the worst,” she recalled.She said that she got to know the real story only after she reached the SKIMS hospital in Srinagar. “His wounds might take time to heal but I am grateful to Allah that his life was saved,” she said.The former sarpanch told The Wire that after the incident the police in Kulgam had urged the youngsters to file a complaint, “But apparently they didn’t want more trouble [from the army] and no complaint was filed,” he said.