Authorities on Thursday exhumed bodies of Mohammad Altaf Bhat and Mudasir Gul, two civilians killed in the Hyderpora encounter, for handing them over to their families, officials said. The bodies were exhumed after sundown and are likely to be handed over to their families later in the night, they said.
This will be for the first time that the body of a person buried under police watch is returned to his kin since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in March last year.
The bodies, accompanied by a police team, are being moved to Srinagar from Handwara where they were initially buried, the officials said.
Families of two civilians held a protest on Wednesday, demanding justice for the victims and the return of their bodies.
A controversy had erupted over Monday’s encounter in Hyderopra following conflicting claims about the two deceased civilians as their family members contested the police’s charge that they were “terror associates”.
According to the police, a Pakistani terrorist and his local associate Mohammad Amir, along with two civilians — Altaf Bhat and Mudassir Gul — were killed in the encounter, where an illegal call centre and a terror hideout were allegedly being run.
On Wednesday, the families of Bhat and Gul held a protest at Press Enclave in the city, demanding that their bodies be returned to them as they were not militants or OGWs.
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