DNA test ordered to probe fake encounter in H-Kashmir
Pakistan Times Kashmir Desk

SRINAGAR: In southern occupied Kashmir, police have exhumed the bodies of two people for forensic tests after accusations that forces personnel killed them in a fake encounter last week.

The Pulwama district magistrate ordered the exhumation and DNA sampling as villagers claimed that the two men killed on Feb 26 and declared liberation activists by the army were innocent civilians.

Villagers said Mukhtar Ahmad Butt, of Zaipora village in Pulwama district, worked in a bakery while Muhammad Rafiq Gania, of Augam village in Islamabad district, was a carpenter.

The bodies of the two villagers were exhumed after their relatives identified the photographs of the dead bodies of those killed by the Indian army.

They have been handed over to the relatives following exhumation orders by the district magistrate, said Pulwama Senior Superintendent of Police. The SSP said a murder case had been registered.

Relatives claimed that Butt and Gania were killed 10 days after their arrest by troops of the 17 JAK Light Infantry Regiment in Sharatpora village, Pulwama district. They were passed off as hardcore activists killed in a gunfight with the army.

The two villagers had nothing to do with ongoing struggle. They were arrested near Islamabad district on Feb 16 after being ordered to get down from a taxi. We contacted all the army camps in the area, but everybody denied knowledge of the arrest, said a relative of one of the victims here.

The district magistrate has now ordered that the DNA samples be sent to the Indian city of Hyderabad's forensic lab.●