Srinagar: Families of three youth police said were militants killed in a gunfight with government forces at Lawaypora in Srinagar outskirts on Wednesday morning, staged a protest asserting that they were innocent.

“Yesterday at 10 a.m., he had tea with me and I swear about it. I don’t know where he was brought down from Sumo. Is this what is going to happen in Kashmir. Is this democracy? Is this the governor Raj? Kill me. Why you killed him. He was a student,” said Bashir Ahmad Ganie, grandfather of Aijaz Maqbool, one of the slain.

“Why was he killed? Was he a terrorist?” he asked.
Slain Aijaz, his grandfather said, is the son of a policeman Mohammad Maqbool Ganie who is posted in Ganderbal.
“Tell us why our son was killed. If they don’t, let them send task force and kill us all at home,” the elderly man told reporters outside PCR Srinagar.
Besides Aijaz, who hailed from Putrigam Pulwama, families of two others—Ather Mushtaq Wani (class 11th student as per family) son of Mushtaq Ahmad Wani from Bellow Pulwama and Zubair Ahmad Lone (carpenter) from Turkwangam Shopian—also protested and claimed they are innocents.
Police could not be immediately contacted for the comments even as on twitter it said that three militants were killed in the gunfight. The names were revealed by the families and have not been officially revealed by the police so far.

Reportedly also, bodies of all three have been taken to Baramulla for burial with their family members allowed to participate in their last rites. (GNS)

Reader correspondent