OCCUPIED SRINAGAR: Relatives and neighbours of two men martyred during a security operation in Illegally Indian-Occupied Jammu & Kashmir (IIOJK) demanded Wednesday that their bodies be returned, denying the pair were associated with militants.
Police said the men died in “crossfire” on Monday during a shoot-out alongside two suspected fighters also killed in the incident in occupied Srinagar, the restive territory’s main administrative hub.
But their families have accused security forces of murdering them in “cold blood” after taking them into a commercial complex to help search for insurgents.
“Today it happened to us, tomorrow it can happen to anyone,” said Abdul Majeed Bhat, whose brother Mohammad owned the building and was killed in the incident.
He was among dozens of people staging a sit-in protest outside Press Enclave, where most of the region’s media offices are located, and holding signs to demand justice.
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“We’ll not rest until my brother’s body is returned to us,” Bhat told AFP. “I appeal to every Kashmiri to protest for the same.”
Security forces in Kashmir last year began refusing families access to the bodies of slain militants.
Officials say the practice helps stop “glorification” of anti-India fighters, whose funerals were usually attended by thousands of people.
After they were killed, the pair were hurriedly buried in the middle of the night by police in a remote graveyard, without their families present.
Humaira Mudasir, whose husband Mudasir Ahmed Gul was also martyred Monday, was among the crowd and cradling her one-year-old daughter in her lap.
“Give me my husband’s body. Give me proof of his involvement (with rebels). He was murdered unarmed,” she told reporters.
Gul had rented an office in the building and was running a real estate business.
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