Srinagar: Division Bench of High Court today stayed a Single Bench order wherein Jammu and Kashmir government was directed to exhume the body of a man who was killed in an encounter in Srinagar outskirts in 2021.
Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir government today filed an appeal against a past week single bench order of the High Court that directed exhumation and burial to Mohammad Amir Magrey at his ancestral graveyard in Gool area of Jammu.
The young man was killed in an encounter on 15th of November 2021 at Hyderpora city outskirts. He was amongst four persons killed by state forces and framed by police as terrorist and militant associates.
Hearing the State appeal filed through advocate general D C Raina, a division bench stayed the single bench order and sent notice to Mohammad Latief Magray, the father of slain Amir Magray.
Raina submitted “the relief granted by the Single Judge could not have been granted in terms of the Medical Science Analysis of the dead body which envisages that the dead body gets putrefied only after a period of one month”.
He claimed that the writ petitioner (father of the slain youth) had not prayed for the sort of relief granted by the Writ Court. “The relief is beyond the pleadings on record”.
The Judgment is self contradictory he said adding “the Single Judge, on the one hand, has referred to the putrefaction of the dead body in advanced stage and directed the Appellant-Government to act with promptitude without wasting any further time, but, at the same time, has taken a contrary view by directing exhumation of the dead body”.
Deepika Singh Rajawat, counsel for the Magray submitted that right to decent burial of the dead body as per the religious belief is a right guaranteed by the Constitution as held by Supreme Court of India.
Pertinently, after the Hyderpora incident, the dead bodies of the four slain persons were not handed over to their relatives and were instead taken to Wadder Payeen in north Kashmir for burial.
After much public outcry, the government had exhumed the bodies of Dr Mudasir Gull and Altaf Ahmad, which were later on handed over to their relatives for performing their last rites at their ancestral graveyards.
However, the body of Amir Latief Magrey was not handed over to his father Mohammad Latief Magrey.
Magray had filed a petition in the J&K High Court praying for handing over the body of his slain son for burial according to his religious faith.
