Kashmir families seek bodies of 2 civilians killed in raid
ABC News
Dozens of relatives of two civilians killed in a controversial gunfight in Indian-controlled Kashmir are pleading with authorities to return the bodies so they could bury them
SRINAGAR, India -- Dozens of relatives of two civilians killed in a controversial gunfight in Indian-controlled Kashmir staged a protest in the disputed region’s main city on Wednesday, pleading with authorities to return the bodies so they could bury them.
Four people, including two civilians and two suspected rebels, died Monday night in the raid by government forces on alleged militants in Srinagar, police said.
Police said the civilians died in the crossfire between government troops and the rebels, who included a Pakistani national. However, witnesses and families of the civilians said Indian troops used them as human shields during the standoff.
Indian authorities later secretly buried the bodies in a remote northwestern village as part of a policy that started in 2020. Since then, authorities have buried the bodies of hundreds of suspected rebels and their alleged associates, including civilians, in unmarked graves in remote areas, denying their families proper funerals.
