Ishfaq-ul-Hassan | India Tomorrow
SRINAGAR, MAY 12—On a sunny afternoon, 14-year-old physically challenged Hazim Shafi Bhat left home with his friends to graze cattle and overcome lockdown boredom at Wanigam in North Kashmir’s Handwara. A few hours later, gun roars broke the eerie silence in the woods and people started running helter-skelter.
Hazim’s friends too fled for safety, but he could hardly walk due to his disability. By the evening when the order was restored, Hazim’s bullet-riddled body was found one kilometer away from the gun battle site that left three CRPF men dead on May 4.
What followed was beyond imagination. For the first time, authorities denied handing over the body of a civilian to his parents. Shock, anger, and outrage gripped the village as police decided to bury him away quietly in a neighbouring district.
“He along with other boys had taken animals for grazing. While others fled, he could not as he was physically handicapped. He could not even properly talk and would occasionally fell down,” Mohammad Rayeez, his immediate neighbour was quoted saying by a local news agency.
Khazir Mohammad Bhat, uncle of the deceased said the district administration informed them that the body would not be handed over to the family and instead be buried at Sheeri.
“We spoke to police as well as officers of district administration pleading them to return the body to us but they did not. Hazim was buried at Sheeri,” he said.
Another family member said they were told that if they didn’t agree to the terms, the authorities will go ahead with burying the boy without the family members’ presence. The family had to give in and eventually, dozen-odd members travelled all the way to Sheeri in Baramulla to attend the last rites of the boy.
This is not an isolated case. For the last two months, authorities have refused to hand over bodies of local militants to their relatives and instead buried them at far off places in presence of few selected relatives.
The government has identified two graveyards in Sonamarg in Central Kashmir’s Ganderbal district and Sheeri in Baramulla district where the slain militants are given a quiet burial.
More than 33 militants have been killed in the lockdown. However, the bodies of only five slain were handed over to their families.
Sources said it seems a new strategy to bury militants and civilians quietly to prevent protests. The decision stems from the fact that a large number of people attend the funeral of militants which turns into an `azadi groundswell’.
Before Sopore, the funeral of at least three militants killed in Kulgam were also attended by a good number of people and in each case, police registered a first information reports and arrested over 100 people.
Prominent human right activist Khurram Parvez said even if concern was funeral amidst pandemic, the families should not have been denied their right to mourn and bury the dead.
“Yesterday 2 militants were killed in a gunfight at Shopian. Family members identified them but police refused & buried them 120 km away. Even if the concern was funeral amidst pandemic, families of these militants shouldn’t have been denied their right to mourn & bury the dead,” Parvez tweeted.
