Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD/WADDUR: Three weeks after he laid down his tools and took up weapons, Kashmiri carpenter Mukhtar Ahmed was killed in a firefight with Indian armed forces, who buried his remains in the unmarked grave hours from his family house.
Mukhtar is among hundreds of citizens killed in combat and hastily interred by Indian police in remote parts of India-held Kashmir, the picturesque Himalayan region home to a protracted insurgency.
Officials justified the policy by saying it aimed to stop “glamourizing terrorists” during violent anti-India demonstrations accompanying the public funerals of dead rebels. But these “martyrs’ graveyards”, as they have known locally, have traumatized the families of slain men and outraged Kashmiris chafing under a broader clampdown on dissent.
Indian police
Indian police brought Mukhtar’s body to a compound in Srinagar after shooting the 25-year-old dead in October. It had shown to his family there for identification.
Brother-in-law Bilal said, “we pleaded for the body to be given to us.”.
“But they refused, loaded it onto the armoured vehicle, and drove away without telling us where they were going to bury it.” Bilal and other relatives followed the Indian vehicle until it stopped at the small village of Waddur, witnessing the hurried burial just before sunset with nothing to mark the spot.
The modest slate headstone now sits above Mukhtar’s remains, erected by relatives and decorated with flowers.
The remote forested place, one of at least five sites used to bury militants far from population centers, has become an area of pilgrimage for the loved ones of slain militants.
Some visitors make video calls from their mobile to relatives who are unable to afford trips there and are too anxious about the military checkpoints along the journey.
Mukhtar’s family weighs whether to uproot themselves and resettle in the mountains near his resting place.
“I can spend two weeks at the house without needing to visit,” his father, Nazir Koka, said.
Armed revolt
Kashmir has been disputed between Pakistan and India since both nations achieved independence 75 years ago. Both sides claim the territory in full. India accused Pakistan of training and supporting militants there, which Islamabad denies.
