A senior official of the Jammu and Kashmir Government on Thursday alleged that police did not allow him to carry his father’s body to home in Srinagar from Jammu as a convoy of Amarnath yatra pilgrims was moving towards the Valley.
Police, however, denied the allegations, calling it as a “misrepresentation of facts” by the official. Imtiyaz Wani, Director of Finance, J&K, shared the ordeal on his Facebook and Twitter accounts.
“All civil rights are subordinate to Amarnath Yatra while moving from Jammu to Kashmir. I am not being allowed to carry forward my father’s dead body. What hell the life of a common Kashmiri is. Inspector Rakesh of @JmuKmrPolice on Yatra duty said the body shall not be allowed,” he wrote.
Wani’s father died in Delhi and he was taking his mortal remains to Kashmir when the ambulance was allegedly stopped by police at Nagrota on the Jammu-Srinagar national highway due to the movement of Amarnath pilgrims. Police said the ambulance was stopped as it tried to join the convoy.
“The fact is that at Tikri at about 0557 hours Thursday one UP number ambulance was trying to join the convoy which was not allowed by the convoy commander. “The person in ambulance claimed that the vehicle is carrying dead body of his father but the officer could not verify the facts in the moving convoy and thus the vehicle followed the convoy and was not allowed to overtake it,” a police spokesman said. He said once the convoy stopped and the officer ascertained the facts the ambulance was allowed to proceed ahead.
Speaking to India Today Wani said, “When we crossed Nagrota after leaving Jammu with my father’s body, I was stopped. I kept pleading with them that I am a senior public servant but they did not pay any heed. It was only after two hours that they let me take my father’s body. The officer kept saying that he has to allow the Yatris and not dead bodies. It is very sad. We are not against the Yatra but does it suspend our civil rights of taking a deceased person home.”
