Terming the administration’s action as a violation of the right to equality, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court on Friday ordered that the body of a civilian, termed as a terrorist and killed in an encounter in November 2021, be handed over to his family for last rites. given. Justice Sanjeev Kumar’s 13-page order said that if the body of deceased Amir Magrey is “highly decomposed” and its excavation may endanger the public, the administration may seek to deprive the family of compensation. 5 lakh as payment of Rs. Give him a decent funeral according to family traditions.
“The decision of the Respondents (Jammu and Kashmir Administration) not to allow the Petitioner to take the body of his son to his native village for last rites was arbitrary and violates Article 14 (right to equality). Constitution of India,” the judge said in his order. Magrey was among the four killed in Hyderpora on the outskirts of Srinagar on November 15, 2021. The police claimed all of them to be terrorists and buried their bodies in Kupwara, North Kashmir.
The Jammu and Kashmir Police had decided in 2020 that it would not hand over the bodies of “terrorists” to family members and bury them at different places to avoid law and order situation. However, following public outcry about the veracity of the encounter, the Jammu and Kashmir administration succumbed to pressure and retrieved the bodies of two – Altaf Ahmed Bhat and Dr Mudasir Gul – and handed over their bodies to their family members.
Amid mounting attack on police’s claims about the encounter, in which the Army had entered the city decades later, the Jammu and Kashmir government has constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the matter. Aamir’s father, Mohammad Latif Magri, through his lawyer Deepika Singh Rajawat, had opposed the police’s claims and stated that he “did not fully agree with the claim of the defendants (police/administration) that he was a terrorist and was killed in an encounter and, therefore, approached the authorities for intervention.” The order states that it is Magrey’s complaint that “the defendants too easily affixed the terrorist tag on his son and the dead body was thoroughly disposed of. He has also refused to bury.”
She informed the court that she approached all the authorities to hand over Amir’s body, but no one listened to her and her son’s body was buried at Vader Pine Cemetery in Kupwara without his presence. The judge questioned the stand of the police and the administration saying that from their reply given in the court and also from the documents submitted in a sealed cover, “it does not emerge as to why the petitioner’s body was requested to be returned. His son Amir Latif Magrey was not accepted and his body was exhumed along with Mohd Altaf Bhat and Dr Mudasir Gul. “Without elaborating much on the issue, it may well be settled that the right of life and liberty to a citizen is guaranteed by Article 21 of the Constitution. India It includes the right of the citizen to live with human dignity and this right to live with human dignity extends to a limited extent even after death.
The question in the context of the present dispute is whether the State can deprive this right in the name of preventing the law and order situation from deteriorating, the judge asked. The order said that though the government argued that the decision not to hand over the body of the deceased to the petitioner for performing the last rites was taken in the larger public interest and to prevent the law and order situation from going out of hand, the order said. was. It is not clear, however, “why the bodies of two of the four killed in the encounter were exhumed and handed over to their relatives for their last rites at the graveyard of their choice and why the same right as claimed by the petitioner was denied.” to be done. .” The judge cited the SIT report, which described Amir as a “confirmed terrorist”, while the other two killed – Altaf Ahmed Bhat and Dr Mudasir Gul – were only “accomplices of terrorists”. “I do not find any logic or understanding in the distinction made by the respondents. It turns out that due to public pressure and demand from the relatives of the two deceased…the Respondents agreed and allowed their bodies to be exhumed and handed over to their relatives. .
“Since the petitioner was a resident of Gool, a remote village in the Jammu province and did not have much authority in the Valley, his request was arbitrarily turned down,” the judge said.
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