Twenty-six years ago, a group of militants raided Ishfaq Ahmad Mughal’s home in Jammu and Kashmir's Ganderbal district, shot him and took him away, bleeding.

The militants had attacked Ishfaq Mughal because of his informal “association” with the Army. The family never saw him again.

Two-and-a-half decades later, the Mughal family lost another son – this time, at the hands of the Army.

On April 1, the Army said it had killed a terrorist in a forest 10 km from the Mughals’ home. But the family alleged that it had killed Ishfaq Mughal’s younger brother, Rashid Ahmad Mughal, in a staged encounter.

“My brother left home for work in the morning,” said Rashid’s elder brother Ajaz Ahmad Mughal. “The next morning, he was dubbed a militant. How did he become a militant in a matter of a few hours?”

A day after Rashid’s killing, Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha ordered a magisterial inquiry into the incident. The deadline of a week has passed, but there is no update on the magisterial probe.

Scroll’s conversations with Rashid’s family and with villagers at the site of the encounter raises several questions about the Army’s claims.

Ajaz Ahmad Mughal, who was called to identify his brother’s body, claimed that Rashid Mudgal’s body was riddled with 19 bullets,...

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