Body exhumed in J&K handed over to family

: The body of an alleged militant was exhumed and handed over to his family on Tuesday, 33 days after he was killed in an encounter with security forces in Kupwara near Line of Control (LoC) and buried there.

In the past two months, three Kashmiri families have come forward claiming bodies of their sons who were buried by police as “unknown militants” after getting killed in gun fights with security forces in the forests of Kupwara on the border.

Earlier this month, the family of Mudasir Ahmad Bhat approached the district authorities of the frontier district of Kupwara in north Kashmir after a piece of paper from a stranger tipped them that their missing son was killed in the forests of Kachama on June 29.

Thirty-two-year-old Bhat left home in January 2017 with his educational certificates to find work in Saudi Arabia after an argument with his family.

The district authorities collected DNA samples from the family that matched with the alleged militant who was buried in Kachama graveyard near LoC. “The body was exhumed and handed over to the family,” said a police officer of the district.

The relatives and family members of Bhat have protested multiple times in the past one month demanding the exhumation of the body. On Tuesday, hundreds of prople converged at Bhat’s Barzulla home in uptown Srinagar as they were waiting for the body to arrive.

“Everybody is waiting to have a glimpse of Mudasir’s body,” said his elder brother Elyas Ahmad. “My father and other relatives have taken possession of the body and are expected to reach here late in the evening and we will bury him during the night,” he said.

SRINAGAR