After the Hyderpora incident, more Jammu and Kashmir families demand the return of the bodies of their slain family members.
The Hyderpora incident triggered voices that have grown louder for authorities to return the bodies of other civilians.
Days after security forces in Kashmir buried the bodies of a doctor and a businessman killed in what they claimed was a routine military operation in Srinagar, several families in Kashmir whose families have been shot and buried miles away are asking for the return of their mortal remains for honorable burials.
The bodies of Muhammad Altaf Bhat, a civilian, and Mudasir Gull, who was into real estate (but a “militant sympathizer” according to the police), were exhumed following a massive outrage in the Valley after the killing of four persons in an alleged gunfight in Hyderpora. They were buried miles away in Handwara.
Their families staged a sit-in at the press enclave in Srinagar demanding the return of their bodies. On Thursday, the governor of Jammu and Kashmir, Manoj Sinha, ordered a probe and legal inquiry on an immediate basis.
That same night, two bodies were given back to their families and were buried again in their ancestral graveyards by their family members and relatives. The return of their mortal remains has prompted other families in the Valley to demand the bodies of their kin.