SRINAGAR: Three days after two persons were found dead inside a load carrier vehicle under mysterious circumstances on the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway, Advocate Mir Majid Bashir has filed a complaint in the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).
The two persons, identified as Shabir Ahmad Mir and Majid Ahmed in the complaint, were residents of Kralpora village of north Kashmir’s Kupwara district who were on way to Srinagar.
Stranded On Highway, Two Kashmiri Residents Die Waiting In Mini-Truck
On January 23, the applicant was travelling from Jammu towards Srinagar in his car as the Traffic Police had announced one-way traffic from Jammu to Srinagar. On reaching Banihal, he was stopped by the police officials and was left stranded on the highway for the intervening night of January 23/24, when, in the morning the unconscious bodies of the two men were found in the load carrier vehicle. Their bodies were rushed to a nearby hospital, where both were declared brought dead.
Following the incident, passengers and drivers stranded on the highway staged a protest demonstration against the authorities at Railway Chowk Banihal.
Pertinently, Kashmir has been under a spell of severe cold for the past many days with temperatures remaining below zero degree celsius constantly during the nights. In the complaint, the advocate blamed the alleged misbehaviour and negligence of the police officials on duty at Banihal for failing to ensure the arrangement of food, makeshift common accommodation or bonfire for the intervening night of January 23/24.
“On the morning of January 24, screams and a huge noise were heard after which it was found that in one of the vehicles (Tata Mobile) stranded there, the two young men namely Shabir Ahmad Mir and Majid Ahmed died due to cold. The police, fearing protests, bundled the dead bodies away in a hurry and opened the road, but it was too late. Due to wrongful confinement and no arrangements, the applicant sustained physical, mental, and psychological torture and abuse for the whole of the intervening night of January 23/24,” the complaint reads.
