For families in Kashmir it’s a long wait for bodies as army probes allegation of ‘staged killings’

A flashpoint for anti-India protests, Kashmir has seen a large number of ‘encounters’ in recent years where people accuse the army of fake killings, reports Shweta Sharma

Mushtaq Ahmad Wani, father of Athar Mushtaq, protesting in Srinagar (EPA)

Mushtaq Ahmad Wani has kept a fresh grave ready near his home in the Pulwama district of Jammu and Kashmir. It will be the final resting place for his 16-year-old son who was gunned down in an “encounter” with the Indian army in December 2020, if his body is ever returned to him.

The 42-year-old father is among several other parents in the Indian Himalayan federal territory, anxiously waiting for the body of a slain family member so they can be given a proper burial, even as the army admitted to wrongdoing by its personnel in a gun battle in a separate case in July.

The rare admission isn’t likely to act as a salve to the injuries caused by decades of strife in this heavily militarised region where both militancy and state retaliation have devastated hundreds of families.