People’s Democratic Party Chief Mehbooba Mufti and CPI (M) leader Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami on Tuesday demanded judicial enquiry while national Conference Vice President Omar Abdullah demanded “impartial and credible” probe into the killings of two men during a gunfight between militants and security forces last night in Hyderpora area of Srinagar.
Police said four people, including a foreign militant and his associate from J&K’s Ramban district, were killed in the gunfight. As per IGP Kashmir, Vijay Kumar, Mohammad Altaf Bhat, the owner of the building where the gunfight took place and one Mudassir Gul, an OGW as per police were killed “in cross fire” a claim contested by their families.
“Using innocent civilians as human shields, getting them killed in cross firing & then conveniently labelling them as OGWs is part of GOIs rulebook now. Imperative that a credible judicial enquiry is done to bring out the truth & put an end to this rampant culture of impunity, “former chief minister and PDP President PDP, Mehbooba Mufti said in a tweet.
CPI (M) leader Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami urged the authorities to handover the bodies of the slain men to their families for proper burial.
“Allegedly using slain unarmed civilians as human shields is shocking and must be probed through judicial process. The circumstances in which these killings happened need to be thoroughly probed,” Tarigami said in a statement.
“The rule of the law is being violated with impunity in Kashmir which is highly unfortunate. From arbitrary arrests of people, including youth to booking them under draconian laws and now allegations of using civilians as human-shields, the situation is turning from bad to worse,” he said.
National Conference Vice president and former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah also demanded an “impartial & credible inquiry” into the killings.
“An impartial & credible inquiry in to the recent encounter in Hyderpora is an absolute necessity. There are far too many questions being raised about the encounter & about the people killed,” Omar said in a tweet.
“There have been numerous instances of fake encounters in the past and the questions raised about this Hyderpora encounter need to be answered swiftly & in a credible manner,” he added.
