AJK villager’s body handed over by India

A day after Pakistan returned an Indian Border Security Force (BSF) soldier as a good will gesture, authorities in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) received the body of a villager killed by the Indian troops along the Line of Control (LoC).

Kala Khan, 42, had gone missing while cutting grass for his animals near the unmarked dividing line outside his Darra Sher Khan village in Poonch district on Wednesday. He was later reported to have been captured by an Indian army petrol.

However, despite reports in the Pakistani media to this effect, there was no word from the Indian side about their army’s belligerence.

 “This morning we received intimation from the Indian held side that they want to handover a body. They however did not provide any information beforehand about the identity of the deceased,” Malik Ayub Awan, assistant commissioner Hajira, told this scribe.

Mr Awan was part of an official team which received the body at Tetrinote-Chakan da Bagh crossing point in Poonch division at about 3:30 pm on Saturday.

From the Indian held side, an army officer of the rank of a lieutenant and some others in civvies had arrived to deliver the body, placed in a wooden box and draped in a plastic sheet, he said.

According to Mr Ayub, the body bore gunshot wounds at ribs, chest and abdomen and was swollen, suggesting that the death had taken place 2-3 days ago.

Initially, relatives of the deceased – his cousin and nephew - refused to identify him as their kin, but an old wound on his left arm, mentioned on his CNIC as identification mark, helped them recognise him, he said.

On being asked by the AJK authorities, the Indian army official maintained that he had been handed over the body at a hospital in (occupied) Poonch city in the morning for transference to the Pakistani side.

 “I don’t know where it has been brought from and when,” Mr Ayub quoted him as telling them.

He said the Indian official did not give them any document from any civilian authority in occupied Kashmir, including the Poonch city hospital doctors, about the death of Kala Khan.

Deputy Commissioner Poonch Chaudhry Fareed told this scribe that the postmortem report conducted in Hajira had revealed that Kala Khan was shot from point blank range.

“This obviously suggests that he was first captured and then shot dead in cold blood,” he said.

Meanwhile, AJK Prime Minister Chaudhry Abdul Majeed has strongly condemned the killing of an innocent civilian by Indian troops, terming it yet another manifestation of Indian army’s aggressiveness in the disputed Kashmir region.

From inside the occupied territory to the areas along the ceasefire line (LoC) the Kashmiris were falling victim to the belligerence of Indian troops without any letup, he said.

“On the one hand Pakistani soldiers rescue Indian soldier while on the other hand Indian soldiers shoot innocent and unarmed Kashmiri civilians dead. This is enough to prove that the Indian army has least regard for human rights,” he said.

It may be mentioned here that the latest incident at the LoC was reminiscent of killing of four Neelum valley residents by the Indian army in the same fashion exactly one year ago. The victims who were plucking a medicinal plant along the LoC were whisked across by Indian army and later killed as “Pakistani intruders.” The claim was however disputed even by some senior Indian army officials as well as a section of Indian press…...Tariq Naqash