Mehran Bhat
Late on Wednesday, the Police personnel raided tge sit-in site of the two victim families at Press Enclave in Kashmir capital Srinagar to evict the families demanding the returning of the bodies of their family members killed in Hyderpora “encounter” on Monday.
Eyewitnesses told The Kashmiriyat that dozens of Police personnel entered the premises of press enclave in Srinagar to Vacate the families who had been protesting during the night amid extremely cold conditions.
“Police personnel arrived in armoured vehicles and soon the lights of the press enclave went off, they then picked up civilians one by one and detained them,” they told.
The family members speaking to The Kashmiriyat said that they were dragged by the Police into the vehicles.
“What wrong have we done? We are not asking for justice or killers to be identified, we are only demanding the dead bodies of our family members killed during the encounter,” one of the protesting family member said.
A police official said that the protesters were detained as a precautionary measure. “All of now all the detained protestors have been released.
“They were detained given the apprehension of law and order situation in the area. We had assured them that the bodies will be returned on Friday but they were adamant to continue the protests in the press enclave, so action needed to be taken,” the official stated.
On Monday, the government forces said “An encounter raged in Hyderopra Srinagar during which two Militants and two of their associates were killed.”
Two families, immediately after, contested the Police version and said their kith and kin killed during the encounter with civilians and not terror associates.
The Police claimed that Pakistani militant, and his local associate Mohammad Amir, along with two civilians named Mohammad Altaf Bhat and Mudassir Gul were killed in the encounter in Hyderpora Srinagar.
Police also said that the bodies of all the four killed in the encounter were buried in the North Kashmir’s Kupwara district.
Since Tuesday, the three families have been staging protests demanding the dead bodies of their kin.