Srinagar: A day after the army claimed to have gunned down a militant in Ganderbal district of central Kashmir, a family approached the police on Thursday (April 2) claiming that it was their son, who had no links to militancy, and alleged he was “killed in cold blood”. The family of Rashid Ahmad Mughal, 28, a commerce post-graduate from Chountwaliwar village in Ganderbal’s Lar area, filed a complaint with Ganderbal police, describing the slain youngster as a hardworking man struggling to make ends meet.The army has claimed that the slain man was a militant and that an AK-56 rifle, three magazines, 67 live rounds and 58 empty AK rounds were recovered from the site of the encounter on the intervening night of March 31 and April 1 in Arahama area of Ganderbal district. However, in its official statement on the encounter, the army did not identify the person who was slain.Rashid Ahmad Mughal. Photo: By arrangement.Recounting his ordeal, Ajaz Ahmad, a labourer, said that a police team informed him on Wednesday at around 10 am while he was at work that his younger brother Mughal had met with an accident in Srinagar. Ahmad said that he was brought to Srinagar’s police control room where a police official asked him to identify a lifeless body lying in the back of an ambulance.“For a moment, I struggled to identify my brother. It looked like bursts of bullets were fired at him which had completely destroyed half of his skull and one of his hands. Two fingers were missing. He had no links to militancy. He was killed in cold blood,” Ahmad said over the phone, breaking down.The deceased lived with Ahmad, who is married and has a four-year-old son. Their parents passed away some years ago. Mughal’s sister and eldest brother are also married and live separately. Ahmad added, “They had killed him without showing any mercy.”A photo of the slain man, which circulated on social media after the encounter on Wednesday, shows a bearded man lying lifeless in a forested area beside a pine tree. He is wearing a pheran – a loose, woollen garment worn over everyday clothes, especially in cold weather – that appears pockmarked by bullets fired near his shoulders. He also appears to wear a combat belt on top of his pheran, an unusual way to dress that may indicate interference with the crime scene, for militants normally conceal such gear.An unscathed AK-47 rifle lying beside the body also seems to have escaped the brutal fate met by its alleged owner.Ahmad said that after identifying his brother, he was asked by officials to accompany the body along with a police team to the Zachaldara area of north Kashmir’s Kupwara district, some 80 km away, where Mughal was buried in a graveyard.Following the reading down of Article 370 in 2019, security forces have been denying the mortal remains of suspected militants killed in encounters to their families. Instead, they slain are buried far away from their homes, purportedly to prevent mass gatherings which, security agencies say, attract youngsters towards militancy.“Not more than six to seven people participated in the funeral,” Ahmad said.Ghulam Rasool, Mughal’s uncle and a labourer, told The Wire over phone that his nephew had left home on Wednesday at around 9 am for Ganderbal, some 12 km away, saying he had some work to attend to.“He was an educated youngster who earned a living by helping people file online applications for official documents and social welfare schemes. He is known to people in many areas of Ganderbal. There is not a single police case against him,” Rasool claimed.The Wire couldn’t immediately verify the claims of the family.Ahmad said that he visited Lar police station in Ganderbal district on Thursday (April 2) morning along with his family members and neighbours and filed a complaint.“We don’t know who killed my brother. Please send media here. The police have promised that they will carry out an investigation but I fear that the matter will be buried within two to three days,” he said, demanding justice.Lt Col Manoj Sahu, a Srinagar-based defence spokesperson, refused to comment on the family’s allegations, saying that “further details would emerge as the police determine the slain person’s background”.This is not the first instance in Jammu and Kashmir where the armed forces have faced accusations of killing civilians in staged encounters and passing them off as militants for cash rewards and promotions.An army captain Bhoopendra Singh was convicted for killing three labourers from Rajouri district of Jammu in Shopian district in a fake encounter and planting weapons on them. He was dismissed from service and handed life imprisonment in 2023, but the sentence was later suspended by the Armed Forces Tribunal.While the army has conducted internal inquiries and taken disciplinary action in such cases, human rights groups and victim families in J&K have long demanded that errant officers should face civilian courts, a demand that has never been met.LG speaksJammu and Kashmir lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha said on Friday that a “thorough and impartial” magisterial inquiry has been ordered into the killing of a youngster from Ganderbal district whom the army has labelled a militant.In a “confidential” order posted by the LG’s office on X, formerly Twitter, the home department said that the inquiry would “ascertain the facts and circumstances” which led to the killing of Mughal.The home department order said that the report of the magisterial inquiry, which is likely to be conducted by the additional district magistrate of Ganderbal, would be submitted within seven days.Note: An earlier version of the piece misstated Rashid Ahmad Mughal’s name. The error has been rectified.