J&K Police To Not Hand-Over Bodies Of Slain Local Terrorists To Kin For Avoiding Huge Crowds At Funeral

In a new development, the Jammu and Kashmir Police has decided that the bodies of slain terrorists will not be handed over to their families, reports News18.

As per the report, authorities are quietly burying the bodies of local militants at faraway places in unmarked graves, under the supervision of a magistrate.

A senior police officer reportedly said, “Every effort is being made to conduct burials in a respectful manner, in the presence of their families and in full compliance with religious requirements. DNA samples are also being maintained to ensure transparency.”

On 22 April, four local terrorists, belonging to al-Qaeda’s Kashmir-region affiliate - Ansar Ghazwa’tul Hind, were killed in an encounter with the security forces in south Kashmir’s Shopian district. They were later identified as Basharat Shah, Wakeel Dar, Tariq Bhat, and Uzair Bhat.

In the records accessed by News18, it was revealed that these terrorists were buried in a government managed graveyard on 22 April. Additionally, the families of Basharat Shah and Wakeel Ahmad Dar, both residents of the district of Pulwama, and Tariq Ahmad Bhat, of the district of Shopian, attended the burial.

The move comes as more often than not, the funerals faced growing crowds of protesters chanting Islamist slogans. Only recently, around 400 hundred residents of Sopore’s Zaingeer village gathered at his funeral of a 23-year-old commander of the terrorist organisation Jaish-e-Mohammed in J&K’s Baramulla area.

It should be noted that the intelligence have many times stated that these funerals acted as recruitment channels for the terrorists groups. They aim to mobilise opinions in their favour and ask youths to join them for their cause.