On Saturday, July 09, when people erupted in protests following death of militant commander Burhan Wani, Fayaz Ahmed Sofi of Naidyaar, Rainawari in Old Srinagar went missing.
His dead body was found on July 16, a week later, in central Kashmir’s Kangan area. He was in his mid-forties.
One of his family members said Fayaz was not “mentally fit”. “However, he was chased by forces on Saturday (July 09, 2016) and since then was missing,” said Javaid Ahmad, brother-in-law of deceased Fayaz.
Narrating the events which led late Fayaz’s family to Kangan late Saturday night, Javaid Ahmad, who is additional secretary level officer with Services Selection Board (SSB), said, “after searching for Fayaz everywhere in our locality and at all the places he used to visit, we lodged a complaint with Police Station Rainawari.”
Javaid said that they got a call from the same Police Station on Saturday 5 in the evening. “We rushed to PS where cops told us to visit Kangan PS,” he informed.
“We reached Kangan around 8:30 PM where after dilly delaying tactics by cops, we were shown a photo of the dead body which confirmed that it was Fayaz’s body. Then we were taken to a go-down type of building,” he said, “we found a dead body whose hands were tied.”
Javaid said that they were surprised to see the condition of the body.
However, he said, “we were not allowed to open the body.” “Police gave us an ambulance and asked us to pay Rs 800 to the driver for carrying the body.”
On opening the body at his native place when the three-man family reached Rainawari around 11:30 PM, Javaid said, “Fayaz was hit in his head; there were bruises all over his body.” “The condition of the body revealed that he was tortured.”
Javaid said that the postmortem done on Fayaz shows that “he died of drowning”. “It was shocking and I got in touch with Dr Sajad at Sub-district hospital Kangan and asked him how it was possible,” he said, “if it was case of drowning then body of Fayaz could have swollen but there were clear torture marks.” Fayaz was buried Saturday-Sunday mid-night, however, his family are seeking answers as how he died.
