According to Akhtar Ayoub, the district disaster management officer in Neelum Valley, 18-year-old Shahzad Manzoor had drowned on July 3 while bathing in the icy waters of the Neelum River near Shaikh Bela village, located some 114 kilometres northeast of Muzaffarabad in the upper belt of the picturesque valley.
Despite persistent efforts by local water rescue teams, the body remained untraced for 17 days until it was spotted along the left bank of the river in the Keran village of Indian-occupied Kashmir.
On July 20, images and videos circulated by residents on this side of the Line of Control (LoC) showed Indian army personnel and local residents retrieving a body from the riverbank.
Civilian authorities from both sides, through military channels, subsequently coordinated to establish the boy’s identity and facilitate the repatriation process.
Mr Ayoub said that after completing the necessary procedural formalities, the coffin carrying the body was returned to Pakistani officials at a footbridge in Chilyana — a village located some 50 kilometres from Muzaffarabad, at the entrance to Neelum Valley - at 5:45pm
According to markings on the wooden coffin, made with a black marker, the body had been buried on July 20 and subsequently exhumed on August 2 for repatriation.
Chilyana faces Teetwal village on the opposite bank of the Neelum River in Indian-occupied Kashmir — a point that once served as a foot-crossing under the intra-Kashmir travel arrangement, before the activity was halted by the Indian government ahead of its unilateral and arbitrary move to revoke the special status of occupied Jammu and Kashmir on August 5, 2019.
Tariq Naqash
No comments:
Post a Comment