New Delhi: The Jammu and Kashmir High Court on Friday ordered the exhumation of the body of Mohammad Amir Magray, one of the four persons killed in Hyderpora area of Srinagar city in an encounter with security forces on November 15 last year, PTI reported.
Hearing the petition filed by Amir's father who sought his son's body for final rites, the court directed the government to make appropriate arrangements for transportation of the body to his native village in Ramban for proper burial.
Four persons, including three local residents and a Pakistani terrorist, were killed in that encounter. The families of three residents -- Altaf Bhat, Dr Mudasir Gul and Amir Magray -- had claimed that they were innocent and killed by the security forces.
After statewide outrage over the encounter, authorities had handed over the bodies of Altaf Bhat and Dr Mudasir Gul to their families for the last rites.
"I am inclined to allow this petition of the father of the deceased Amir Latief Magrey and direct the respondents (Jammu and Kashmir government) to make arrangements for exhumation of the body/remains of the deceased...from the Wadder Payeen graveyard in presence of the petitioner," Justice Sanjeev Kumar said in his order, PTI reported.
The court further said that if the body is "highly putrefied and is not in deliverable state or is likely to pose risk to public health and hygiene, the petitioner and his close relatives shall be allowed to perform last rites as per their tradition and religious beliefs in the...graveyard itself".
The court said that in such a situation, the state shall pay to the petitioner Mohammad Latief Magrey a compensation of Rs 5 lakh for "deprivation of his right to have the dead body of his son and give him a decent burial as per the family traditions, religious obligations and faith which the deceased professed when he was alive".
(With inputs from PTI)