Amid protests, thousands of people participated in the funeral prayers of two slain militants in Kulgam and Pulwama districts of south Kashmir on Wednesday. Yesterday, the bodies of the slain Mudasir Ahmad Bhat of Parigam, Kulgam and Sheraz Ahmad Sheikh of Lajoora, Pulwama were exhumed, more than ten days after they were buried near the Line of Control (LoC) at Badwan village in Tanghdar in north Kashmir’s Kupwara district.
The bodies were later handed over to the next of their kin. The exhumation followed submission of applications by the families before the district magistrate Kupwara seeing pictures of their kin through social media and later at Tanghdar police station. Soon after the bodies reached their native villages, people from all the neighbouring areas reached the respective villages at Parigam and Lajoora where they participated in the funeral prayers of the duo. Several rounds of funerals were offered for both the slain militants. Both the militants were later laid to rest amid pro-independence and anti-government slogans.
Meanwhile, a spontaneous shutdown was observed in parts of Pulwama and Kulgam against the killings. Shops and other business establishments remained closed in these areas while public transport is off the roads. The authorities have snapped internet services in Pulwama and Kulgam districts since midnight, while as railway authorities suspended train service to south Kashmir. The army had claimed to have killed the slain in an encounter with soldiers of 20 JAT along with three other associates on May 25/26 last month.
“We had credible intelligence inputs that there is likely to be an infiltration in the sector because of which we had placed a number of interception groups to trap these militants,” Brigadier PK Mishra, Commander Tanghdar Brigade had said while addressing a press conference. On the night of 25 and 26th May, Mishra had said these militants walked into this side where the ambush was placed and they were killed. “The troops on the ground have succeeded in foiling the infiltration bid of a group of militants which were very heavily armed. They had modern weaponry, modern equipment.
They were carrying under barrel grenade launchers and we succeeded in eliminating them without any casualties to our troops which is indeed credible,” he had said.