For the last 11 months, Mushtaq Ahmad Wani has stuck to a painful ritual. Almost every day, he tends to an empty grave near his home, hoping to bury his only son, killed in a controversial encounter.
Wani, 42, has been nursing a deep wound ever since his 16-year-old son, Athar Mushtaq, and two youngsters were killed last December in an encounter in Srinagar’s Lawaypora locality, 40 km from his home. Police later buried the three in Sonamarg, more than 140 km away despite families protesting and pleading their innocence and returning the bodies. A policeman’s son was also among the three killed.
Wani says the trio was picked up from three different areas, taken to Srinagar and killed in a fake encounter. There was no police record to suggest his son, a class 11 student, was involved in any militant activities, he adds.
The Jammu and Kashmir police had initially said the three were not listed as militants in its records but two days later claimed they were “terrorist associates". Police even promised to investigate the case by looking at all angles. “I have not heard anything on that for the last one year," he rued.
Earlier this year, he and six others were charged under UAPA for protesting and demanding the body of Athar. A case stands registered in a nearby police station.
Each time the family recollects the tragedy, their faces turn pale and tears well up in their eyes. “He was in the middle of writing his class 11 examination when on 29th November he was taken to Srinagar and killed next day," Wani told News 18, showing his marks sheet and a pile of pictures in which the young boy poses with his friends and playing cricket.
While he had written four papers, the result shows he was absent on the day he was supposed to write his Urdu language test. “This was the last paper he had to write to clear exams," said Wani, sounding sad.
Last week, the family hopes were reignited when the government handed over the bodies of two businessmen to their families killed in a controversial gunbattle in Hyderpora locality.
Following that Wani made a fresh pitch urging the government to consider handing over his son’s body by uploading an emotional video on social media. He requested Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha to intervene and help him get Athar’s body.
"My family wants the body to be buried here, next to our home. We are restless. Please ease our pain," he said in the video that struck a chord in social circles within hours.
Wani says his mother, wife and daughter have turned into emotional wrecks since the tragedy hit them. “My wife’s health has taken a hit, my daughter cannot concentrate on studies. Even I haven’t been able to focus on our apple farms. There is no interest left in our lives. We are living corpses," he said.
Last year, Wani had dug up a grave, all by himself, in his ancestral graveyard at Bellow village, hoping it will move authorities into some action. “I have not lost hope. One day they will return the body. I have pledged I will keep on fighting peacefully till Athar’s body is given back," he said, adjusting the tin over the grave.
“In the last 11 months, I must have travelled to Sonamarg a dozen times to offer prayers at Athar’s grave but each time I return, I feel someone has twisted a knife in my heart."
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