Jammu: Six of family found dead at home under suspicious circumstances; SIT formed

Jammu, Aug 17: Six members of a family were found dead under suspicious circumstances at their home on Wednesday.

A special investigation team (SIT) of J&K Police has now been constituted to investigate the death of six people. "SIT headed by Sanjay Sharma (SP rural Jammu), Pardeep Kumar (SDPO Nagrota), Inspector Vishav Partap (SHO Nagrota) and SI Majid Hussain (IC Police Post Sidhra) has been formed to investigate the matter," police told news agency IANS.

The deceased were identified as Sakina Begum, her two daughters Naseema Akhter and Rubina Bano, son Zafar Salim and two relatives Noor Ul Habib and Sajad Ahmad, Jammu and Kashmir police informed news agency PTI.

Prima facie it appears to be a case of poisoning, though it has to be ascertained whether it is a case of forced poisoning or otherwise, the official said.

"Five deceased belonged to Marmat in Doda district of Jammu division and one to Barzalla area of Srinagar district. Of these, Sakina Begum and her two daughters, Naseema and Rubina, and her son, Zafar Saleem, and Sajad Ahmad were from Doda district while Noor-ul-Habib was from Barzalla area of Srinagar District," he added.

The bodies were recovered from the family's house in Sidhra locality. Bodies are in the government medical college hospital in Jammu where medico-legal formalities, including post-mortem is being conducted to ascertain the exact cause of death.

However, there are no bullet marks on the bodies, sources have informed The Times of India.

Meanwhile, terrorists shot dead a Kashmiri Pandit and injured his cousin on Tuesday at an apple orchard in south Kashmir's Shopian district, which had seen similar attacks on the minority community in April.

This casualty raised the number of targeted killings to 21 this year.

Tuesday's incident was a chilling reminder of the barbaric gunning down of a school principal Supinder Kaur last October.

According to police officials, two terrorists belonging to the banned Al-Badar organisation, came to the orchard this morning and lined up everyone.

After identification, they segregated Sunil Kumar Bhat and his cousin Pritmber Kumar Bhat and shot indiscriminately on them with their AK-47 rifles.

Both the cousins were immediately shifted to a hospital where Sunil Kumar succumbed to injuries. The condition of Pritmber Bhat is stated to be stable.