Raqeeb Bhatt
Srinagar, Jan 19 : The family of Athar Mushtaq, one of the trios killed in Lawaypora gunfight has rejected police claim of him being involved in militancy or any other unlawful activities
Talking to news agency KDC father of Athar Mushtaq Wani, one of the three youth killed in Lawaypora encounter has again rejected the claims of the police that his son was involved in militancy.
Mushtaq Ahmad Wani of Below, Rajpora in southern Pulwama district, said that how can now police claim that they have collected evidence about his involvement in militancy.
“Why didn’t the police have evidence before killing my son? Now they claim they have collected 60 percent evidence. When the police didn’t know that my son was OGW before killing him, how can they come to know about it? They will make fabricated and false evidence to justify his killing,” Wani said.
He said that it is like going before a judge after killing a person to seek justice for him. What kind of justice is this?
“The police will show us they traveled from Pulwama to Hyderpora by a car or sumo. Is that evidence of involvement in militancy?” he said.
He said “Police should show them the weapon and ammunition by which they were planning the attack which the army officer mentioned after killing them.”
He said that police are citing COVID 19 pandemic as a reason not to hand over his son’s body to the family.
“Why do they hand over the body of policemen to their families when they are killed? The policeman from Nagam, Budgam, who was killed in the Natipora attack, was my relative. I participated in his funeral. There were more than 10,000 people who attended his funeral. How did they hand over his body. Wasn’t there COVID threat at that time,” he asked.
He further said that police should hand over the body and he assures them that only few relatives will participate in his burial.
“I will give in writing to the police that I will bury him during the night in the grave which I have dug for him. My son is innocent. Police should hand over the body,” he said.
IGP Kashmir on Monday said they have collected sixty percent of the evidence that will prove the involvement of the trio in militancy and will convince the families.
Army had said that it killed three militants in Lawayapora in an overnight encounter. The three were identified as Ajaz Maqbool Ganie and Ather Mushtaq from South Kashmir’s Pulwama district and Zubair Ahmad Lone from Shopian. However the families claimed that their sons were innocents and were killed in a fake encounter. (KDC)
