HC orders J&K admin to exhume third body

HIGH COURT TOLD AUTHORITIES TO PAY ₹5L AID TO MAGREY’S FAMILY IF THE BODY IS ‘HIGHLY PUTREFIED’

HT Correspondent

SRINAGAR: The Jammu & Kashmir high court on Friday ordered the authorities to exhume the body of Amir Latief Magrey, one of the four people killed in the Hyderpora encounter last year, and hand over the body to his family for burial.

The four people were killed in the outskirts of Srinagar on November 15, 2021. While police said all of them were terrorists and buried their bodies in Kupwara in north Kashmir, the families of the deceased dismissed the claims.

Earlier, after a public outcry about the veracity of the encounter, the J&K administration buckled under pressure and exhumed the bodies of two of the deceased — Altaf Ahmad Bhat and Dr Mudasir Gul — and handed them over to their family members. On December 30, Magrey’s family moved the J&K high court seeking his body for burial.

Hearing the plea on Friday, the court directed the government to facilitate transportation of his body to his native village in Jammu’s Gool Ramban and asserted that if the body is “highly putrefied” and its exhuming could cause a risk to the public, the administration would pay ₹5 lakh to the family as compensation.

“Since the dead body of the deceased must be in advanced stage of putrefaction, as such, it would be desirable that the respondents act with promptitude and do not waste any further time. However, if the body is highly putrefied and is not in deliverable state or is likely to pose risk to public health and hygiene, the petitioner and his close relatives shall be allowed to perform last rites as per their tradition and religious belief in the Wadder Payeen graveyard itself,” the 13-page order said.

“In that situation, the State shall pay to the petitioner a compensation of ₹5 lakhs for deprivation of his right to have the dead body of his son and give him decent burial as per family traditions, religious obligations and faith...,” it added.

The court asserted that the “apprehension of law and order getting vitiated” because of the exhumation at this point in time appears to be illusory.