Protesters on Sunday questioned the Army version of the Kupwara encounter, which left five foreign militants dead on Saturday. However, ruling out any staged encounter, the Army said one soldier injured in the gun battle succumbed to his injuries. Hundreds of protesters buried the five Jaish-e-Muhammad militants killed in Kupwara’s Drugmulla area in a common graveyard on Sunday. After the burial, the locals questioned the Army version.
“The bodies [of militants] looked very old, as if killed a few days ago. They bore no major marks on them since they were brought out from the debris of a house razed in the encounter,” said a local.
Locals’ chargeThe locals also alleged that the encounter in the area was a move “to retain farmers’ land taken over by the Army.”
“There was a move to hand over the land to the locals. It seems a staged encounter now,” said another local.
However, Udhampur-based defence spokesman, Colonel S.D. Goswami, said one critically injured soldier, Naik Gawade Pandurang Mahadev, succumbed to his injuries. “The soldier was part of the column that initially located and engaged the hiding terrorists leading to successful elimination of all five terrorists,” said Mr. Goswami.
