Srinagar 27 May (KDC): Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court on Friday directed the J&K Government to exhume the body of Ramban youth who was killed in an alleged “encounter” last year in Hyderpora area of summer capital Srinagar.
Sources told news agency Kashmir Dot Com that the High Court has directed the government to exhume the body of Amir Magray, who was killed in the alleged encounter in Hyderpora along with three others.
Nine days after reserving the verdict, the court however left the government free to impose “any reasonable terms and conditions in respect of exhumation, transportation and burial.” In case the body is highly putrefied and is not in deliverable state or is likely to pose risk to public health and hygiene, the court ordered as per the judgment, a copy of which lies with KDC.
“Amir’s father and his close relatives shall be allowed to perform last rites as per their tradition and religious belief in the Wadder Payeen graveyard in Kupwara district itself. In that situation, the State shall pay to the petitioner a compensation of Rs. 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 which the deceased professed when he was alive,” the court ordered.
The controversial encounter at Hyderpora in Srinagar led to the killing of a dentist along with his employee, a trader and a militant.
Pertinent to mention that the police had permitted exhumation of two bodies of Altaf Ahmad and Dr Gull, who were killed in the “operation”, and their re-burial in their ancestral graveyards in Srinagar.
Following the encounter, Ramban family was seeking the return of their slain son’s body, which was buried in north Kashmir’s Handwara district.
Head of the SIT, DIG Sujith K Singh at a presser earlier this year said that investigation has revealed that Amir was closely associated with the foreign militant ‘Bilal Bhai’, “who was killed in the operation while trying to flee”.
Amir’s father, Mohammad Latief Magray had filed the petition through counsel Deepika Singh Rajawat in December last year for the exhumation of Amir’s body. (KDC)