Bodies of Shopian encounter victims exhumed, handed over to families

Srinagar : Bodies of three civilians allegedly killed in a stage-managed encounter on July 18 in Jammu and Kashmir's Shopian district were exhumed on Saturday and handed over to families for final rites.

The bodies of the three civilians belonging to Rajouri district in Jammu division were exhumed after 70 days from a graveyard in the Gantamulla area of the north Kashmir Baramulla district. Families of Imtiyaz Ahmad, Abrar Ahmad and Muhammad Ibrar had claimed that their wards had come to Shopian district to work as labourers and had been framed and killed as militants in a fake encounter.

After the families lost contact with their wards, they identified their photographs posted on social media after the encounter of July 18 in the Amshipora village of Shopian district. The claim of the families was substantiated after their DNA samples matched with those of the three slain youth. Subsequently, police could unearth no evidence to prove the militant links of the slain persons.