SRINAGAR: Dozens of relatives of two civilians killed in a controversial gunfight in Indian-occupied Kashmir staged a protest in the disputed region’s main city on Wednesday, pleading with authorities to return the bodies so they could bury them.
Four people, including two civilians and two suspected fighters, died Monday night in the raid by government forces on alleged fighters in Srinagar, police said.
Police said the civilians died in the crossfire between government troops and the fighters. However, witnesses and families of the civilians said Indian troops used them as human shields during the standoff.
Indian authorities later secretly buried the bodies in a remote northwestern village as part of a policy that started in 2020. Since then, authorities have buried the bodies of hundreds of suspected fighters and their alleged associates, including civilians, in unmarked graves in remote areas, denying their families proper funerals.
The family members of the two civilians, identified as trader Mohammad Altaf Bhat and Mudassir Ahmed, a dental surgeon and real estate dealer, assembled in an area of Srinagar where several media offices are located and demanded the return of the bodies.
They raised slogans and some of them carried leaflets that read “Stop innocent killings & atrocities” and “We want justice.”
Saima Bhat, a relative of trader Bhat, said they had little hope of any justice.
“Justice is a long journey. We just plead right now that the bodies of our loved ones be returned,” she said. “At least respect the dead and allow us to give them a dignified burial.”
Meanwhile, government forces deployed in half a dozen villages in the southern Gool area to enforce a ban on the assembly of more than four people, after family members of one of the slain men in Monday’s raid threatened to block a highway.
The man, 24-year-old Amir Magray, who police described as a fighter, was a salesman at a shop in Srinagar, his father Abdul Latief told reporters. Latief’s home has been protected by police guards after he killed a militant with a stone in 2005.
“Denial of the body of my son is the reward of the fight against terrorists. My home is still guarded by police,” Latief was quoted by NDTV as saying. “Tomorrow the security guards can kill me and claim that I was a militant.”
Authorities say the policy of not returning fighters’ bodies to their families is aimed at stopping the spread of the coronavirus and to avoid potential law and order problems during funerals.
The policy has added to widespread anti-India anger in the region and some rights groups have fiercely criticised the move, calling it a grave violation of religious rights.
Kashmiris for years have accused Indian troops of targeting civilians and abusing power with impunity. Such allegations include staging gunfights then saying the victims were militants to claim rewards and promotions.
Indian officials acknowledge the problem but deny abuses are part of a strategy. They say the allegations are mostly separatist propaganda meant to demonize troops.
Fighters in the Indian-occupied portion of Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi’s rule since 1989. Tens of thousands of civilians, fighters and government forces have been killed in the conflict.
