Srinagar: Four days after his militant son was killed by government forces in Lawaypora area of the city outskirts, the father of slain youth Ather Mushtaq on Saturday threatened to commit suicide if his son’s body is not returned to the family.
“My innocent son was killed in cold blood. I am asking Indian government and particularly DC Pulwama to hand over the body of my son to me” Athar’s father Mushtaq Ahmad said Saturday.
Ahmad, made these remarks while digging a grave for his teen son, who has already been buried by the authorities in Sonmarg area of Ganderbal district after the Lawaypora “encounter”.
In the video that has gone viral on social media, Ahmad is seen breaking down in tears and make fervent appeals to the government. He also says in the video that he will visit the PCR to seek his son’s body and will kill himself if denied the same.
“I want justice and if I was denied my dead son’s body, I will end my life,” he says in the video shot at the family’s ancestral graveyard in Bellow village of Pulwama.
Ahmad also alleged that he was denied last glimpse of his son by the authorities by shifting the body to Sonmarg.
The killing of Athar and two other youth Ajaz Maqbool Ganaie of Pulwama and Zubair Ahmed Lone of Shopian has created a political storm after the mainstream political parties demanded a time bound probe into the circumstances leading to the encounter. The demand for probe gained momentum after the families vouched for the innocence of the youth and accused the state forces of killing them in a fake encounter, a charge strongly contested by police.
Police have been maintaining that all the three were militants, two of them hardcore OGWs, and planning a major strike on the forces along the Srinagar-Baramulla highway. (With KNT inputs)
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