Indian-administered Kashmir – Rashid Ahmad Mughal was barely six when armed rebels barged into their home in Chunt Waliwar village, in Ganderbal district of Indian-administered Kashmir, on a freezing January night in 2000.At about midnight, nearly a dozen armed men broke the window by force and entered the Mughals’ home, where six people were asleep – 23-year-old Ishfaq, his 20-year-old sister Naseema, and younger brothers Ajaz, 8, and Rashid, 6, besides their two cousins.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listThe rebels had come looking for Ishfaq, who, the family admitted, worked for the Indian army, which controls the region.“He tried to flee,” Naseema recalls, “but they shot him.”As the family raised an alarm, the rebels took Ishfaq’s body and fled into the dead of the night. Ishfaq Ahmad Mughal was killed in 2000 by the Kashmiri rebels [Al Jazeera]Since then, the Mughal siblings have been hoping for the return of his remains so that they can perform his last rites in accordance with Islamic traditions.As the siblings waited for more than 26 years for closure on losing Ishfaq, another tragedy hit them last month.On March 31, Rashid, now 32, was shot dead by the Indian army for being a suspected rebel.The army said it launched an operation along with the police in the Arahama area of Ganderbal after receiving “specific intelligence input” on the presence of “terrorists”, as Indian authorities and the media describe the rebels.The army said Rashid was killed during an exchange of fire with the rebels in a forest. But the residents reject the claim, calling …
