By Aasif Sultan

Srinagar: Kupwara Police today took the DNA samples from Srinagar man who claims that a militant killed in north Kashmir’s frontier district Kupwara forests on Friday is his son. 

Ghulam Mohammad Bhat from Srinagar’s Old Barzulla area was asked by authorities to reach the frontier district to have his DNA samples.

“Our father went there and his blood sample was taken by the Police today. They told us that the Police have already taken the sample of the slain militant. We are only hoping that they come up with the results soon,” Ilyas Ahmad, son of Bhat, said.

The family claims that the slain militant is their son Mudassir Ahmad Bhat, 32, who went missing in January 2017. A missing report was filed by the family after the youth left home in 2017.

On Sunday, the family recognised the slain militant from a picture shown to them by the Army which was taken by them after killing the militant in Trehgam forests.

Police sources said that the youth had crossed over to Pakistan and received armed training there.

“He had joined Lashkar-e-Toiba there and was operating in north Kashmir. He was injured during the gunfight in Kachama forests of Kupwara while his associates fled from the spot,” a police official said.

Police, most of the times, release pictures of slain militant for identification. Recently, two south Kashmir families had identified their dead militant sons on social media after the Police had released their pictures. The authorities handed over the families their sons after one week and they very buried in their respective villages.

Recently, the Indian Express had published a report saying that the police “will decide on a case-to-case basis on whether to pass on the body to a slain militant’s family. Authorities may decide on burying militants killed in encounters at the place nearest to the encounter site, it is learnt.”

This was after forces had urged Government of India to not handover bodies of local militants to their families fearing huge funerals.

In 2015, the authorities decided to deny locals the dead bodies of foreign militants after Lashkar commander Abu Qasim attracted a mammoth gathering at his funeral. Since then, foreign militants are secretly buried in north Kashmir.