New Delhi: Kulgam resident Imtiaz Ahmad Magray whose body was recovered from the Veshaw Nalla Saturday evening, hours after he was picked up by security forces on the suspicion that he had information on terrorist hideouts, jumped into the stream in an attempt to ditch security personnel accompanying him to a suspected terrorist hideout, said sources in the security establishment. The 23-year-old, sources said, was an overground worker (OGW) with ties to the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
His family, however, denied the charge and said he is being ‘accused of something he never did’. Speaking to ThePrint Monday, his elder brother Riyaz said security forces barged into their home in Aharbal in Kulgam district around 6 am on 3 May and took Imtiaz with them.
Imtiaz’s name, said sources, had surfaced in connection with a counter-insurgency operation carried out in Tangmarg on 23 April acting on intelligence about the presence of terrorists in the area. While the terrorists evaded capture, Imtiaz admitted during interrogation that he had information about hideouts frequented by LeT operatives, said sources. “He (Imtiaz) was taken to the locations based on whatever he revealed about terrorist hideouts during interrogation. He had led the security forces to a cave as well. When the forces reached near the stream, he managed to jump off, in a bid to escape the forces, however he drowned. His body was then discovered Saturday,” said one source.
Purported visuals of Imtiaz jumping into the Veshaw Nalla, said to be captured by drones deployed in the area by security forces to keep track of terrorists’ movements, have also surfaced. But his elder brother Riyaz maintained that the “video that is going viral is fake”.
Adding, “That’s not him (Imtiaz). They are accusing him of something that he never did.”
“He was not an OGW. He was a kid,” Riyaz told ThePrint over the phone, adding that Imtiaz would travel to Punjab and Himachal Pradesh for three months each year to work there as a daily wage labourer. He would return home during the summer, said Riyaz. According to him, “Accusing him (Imtiaz) of being an OGW is a big lie. He lived for his parents.”
The youngest among eight siblings, Imtiaz couldn’t finish his school education due to financial constraints and had been working odd jobs right after Class 10.
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‘All he wanted was to lead a simple life’
Riyaz said after security forces picked up Imtiaz Saturday, he was “immediately taken to Manzgam thana”.
“We reached there half an hour later. The moment we asked if he had been brought there, they denied.” After they were turned away by police personnel at Manzgam police station, Riyaz said he, and others, went to the Army camp in Behibagh along the Anantnag-Shopian road where they were told that Imtiaz had been brought in for questioning and would be released later.
According to Riyaz, they then returned home and it was only in the evening that they learnt from local residents about Imtiaz’s body being recovered from the stream. “A local resident informed me about my brother’s body being found in the stream. We rushed to the spot and decided to take him home for last rites but the security forces tried to stop us saying that an autopsy is compulsory before handing his body over to us,” said Riyaz.
The body was handed over to the family around 10 am Sunday following an autopsy. He was laid to rest in the local graveyard around 6 pm the same day. “We had never imagined that something like this would happen to him. All he wanted was to lead a simple life and was trying hard to make a livelihood,” said Riyaz, adding that Imtiaz led a very routine life.
The elder brother demanded a probe into the “killing” and added, “If he (Imtiaz) was involved then even if they would have arrested him, we would have never said a word.”
In March, the Jammu and Kashmir government had initiated a judicial probe into the deaths of two brothers—missing since February—and the disappearance of a third man from Kulgam. The bodies of the brothers were recovered from Veshaw Nalla in March, while that of the Kulgam resident was recovered from the stream in April.
Meanwhile, PDP president and former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti in a post on X said the recovery of “yet another body” from a river in Kulgam raises “serious allegations of foul play”.
Yet another body has been recovered from a river in Kulgam raising serious allegations of foul play. Local residents allege that Imtiyaz Magray was picked up by the army two days ago and now mysteriously his body has surfaced in the river.
The recent terrorist attack in Pahalgam… https://t.co/z2q3OJPa7m
— Mehbooba Mufti (@MehboobaMufti) May 4, 2025
“If a single act of violence can shake the entire system—triggering arbitrary arrests, home demolitions, and the targeting of innocent civilians then the perpetrators have already achieved their objective,” Mufti wrote, referring to the crackdown on the terror grid in the Kashmir valley in the aftermath of the Pahalgam attack.
J&K Minister Sakina Itoo, who visited Imtiaz’s village Sunday, said there should be a judicial probe into the circumstances surrounding his death.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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Ms. Zenaira Bakhsh is a Kashmiri and has a track record of vilifying and demonising Modi/RSS/BJP/Hindutva. Her articles on other platforms such as Coda reek of bile and vitriol targeted at Hindus. Her hatred and disgust for Kafirs comes through very clearly in those articles.
The Print, by providing a platform to the likes of Ms. Bakhsh, is doing the nation great disservice.
We Hindus have lost 26 brothers. We will avenge each one of them. No matter what the likes of Karanjeet Kaur may say or think, we will go after the perpetrators. Each and every individual involved will be hunted down.