HC upholds relief to family of youth killed in Hyderpora

Orders authorities to pay compensation of Rs 5 lakh to the kin of Amir Magrey

SRINAGAR: A division bench of Jammu and Kashmir High Court on Friday ordered the authorities to pay compensation of Rs 5 lakh to the family of Amir Magrey, one of the four persons killed in the Hyderpora encounter last year, and asked the government to allow family to offer prayers at the place where he was buried by the police in Handwara.

Amir was killed in Hyderpora on the outskirts of Srinagar on November 15, 2021. The police had termed all of them ‘terrorists’ and buried their bodies in Kupwara.

Following a public outcry over the veracity of the encounter, the J&K administration buckled under pressure and exhumed bodies of two of them -- Altaf Ahmad Bhat and Mudasir Gul -- and handed them over to their family members.

The HC division bench comprising Chief Justice Pankaj Mithal and Justice Javeed Iqbal observed, “Considered and analysed above, and having regard to the peculiar facts and circumstances of the present case, the instant appeal is disposed of as follows: Appellants to allow respondent no.1 and his family members (maximum 10 persons) to perform Fatiha Khawani (religious rituals/prayers after burial) of deceased at Wadder Payeen graveyard, on the date and time to be decided in consultation with respondent no.1, subject to taking into account security measures which may be required to be put in place inasmuch as the Covid guidelines.”

Lateef Magrey, father of Amir, had filed a writ petition seeking exhumation of his son’s body and also demanded it be handed over to the family for performing last rites at his native village.

Hearing the plea on May 27, the court had 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 Rs 5 lakh to the family as compensation.