Four days on, three civilians missing in Kathua found dead
The bodies of a teenager and his two relatives, who went missing during a wedding function on Wednesday night, were recovered near a waterfall in the higher reaches of Billawar in Kathua district of Jammu and Kashmir on Saturday.
The trio had gone missing from the Malhar area of Kathua, prompting the security forces to launch a massive search operation. The deceased have been identified as Jogesh Singh, Darshan Singh and Varun Singh.
Sources said the bodies were retrieved from a deep gorge and taken to Kathua for postmortem. BJP MLA from Billawar Satish Sharma, who had raised the issue in the J&K Assembly on Friday, confirmed to The Tribune that the bodies had been recovered.
“It’s difficult to determine at the moment how the deaths occurred. Let the post-mortem be conducted. The situation is tense and the people are worried,” he said.
Sharma said he had raised the matter with Union Minister and Udhampur-Kathua MP Jitendra Singh. “The MP said he will take it up with the Home Department,” said the legislator.
Sources said family members had alerted the police after being informed by the trio that they had lost their way in a remote area, which had seen a spurt in militant activity in the recent past.
While the Jammu and Kashmir Police, which is under Lt Governor Manoj Sinha, are yet to issue any statement, Deputy Chief Minister Surinder Choudhary posted on X that the bodies had been recovered in the upper reaches of Billawar. “My heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families. Increasing crime is a matter of concern!” wrote Choudhary.
Police sources said an investigation was underway to determine if a terror link was involved.
In a similar incident in Kathua last month, two persons had gone missing and their bodies were recovered from the banks of a stream at Batheri village.
In July last year, five soldiers were killed in a militant attack on an Army convoy in the Lohai Malhar area of Kathua.
