J038;K encounter: Body to be exhumed on Aug 29

Two people,including Mohammad Ishaq of Rajouri and Mohammad Din of Udhampur,had staked claim over the dead body. While the former claimed the deceased to be his missing son,the latter said the victim happened to be his younger brother.

To check veracity of their claims,the police had got government doctors in Poonch to take DNA samples of both the claimants and send them along with the DNA samples of the deceased to Forensic Science Laboratories FSL in Chandigarh and Hyderabad . While people at the Chandigarh Lab did not accept the samples in view of their preoccupation,the Hyderabad FSL returned the samples terming them clotted.

Confirming this,Poonch Senior Superintendent of Police Ashkoor Wani said they had approached Deputy Commissioner Ajit Kumar Sahu,seeking his permission to exhume the body for collecting his DNA samples afresh. The problem with earlier samples arose as these had been put by doctors in formalin liquid which clots after 24 hours,Wani said,adding that these would now be put in saline liquid as suggested by the Hyderabad FSL. In view of holidays during the next two days,the body will be exhumed by police at Mahrote on August 29, the SSP said.

On August 7,both the Army and police claimed to have killed top Lashkar-e-Toiba commander Abu Usman alias Adnan of Pakistan,an A-category militant owing allegiance to Lashkar-e-Toiba,in a night-long fierce gun battle.

However,next day as controversy arose over the real identity of the deceased following refusal by local people to bury the body in view of his being a Hindu,senior police and Army officers admitted that the encounter was fake and accused Territorial Army jawan Abdul Majeed and Special Police Officer Noor Hussain of having misled them. Police arrested the jawan and the SPO and charged them with murder while the state government ordered a magisterial inquiry into the matter.