SRINAGAR: Jammu and Kashmir police recovered on Friday the decapitated body of a 25-year-old youth abducted Wednesday night from his Bandipora home by Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists. The headless body was identified as that of Manzoor Ahmad Bhat of Bouinkhan Mohalla in Hajin, Bandipora.

Bhat’s body was first spotted by locals in an orchard just one km from his home on Friday. Manzoor Bhat, son of Abdul Gaffar Bhat, was abducted by Lashkar terrorists when they barged into the Bhat family’s house at 11.45 pm on Wednesday to pick up his father, Abdul Gaffar Bhat, and him. They thrashed the other family members when they tried to stop the abduction. The father, however, managed to escape but suffered knife injuries to the stomach. He was rushed to hospital for treatment, a police statement said.

The police statement said the kidnapping was masterminded by Mohammad Saleem Parrey of Hajin, who had become a militant last summer and was associated with a group of Lashkar terrorists of Pakistani nationality. The police added that evidence collected so far indicated that Saleem and the foreign terrorists went to the house of the in-laws of one Naseer Ahmad Parray on April 3, shot and injured three of that family and abducted Naseer. They even fired at two ladies who were also brutally beaten, police said.

Naseer was found dead the next day on the outskirts of Hajin; he had been shot thrice in the abdomen. The same Saleem Parray conspired to pick up Abdul Gaffar Bhat and his son Manzoor Ahmad Bhat on Wednesday, police said.

Former J&K CM Omar Abdullah attacked separatists on Friday for “maintaining silence” over the beheading of the Hajin resident. Without naming any separatist leader, Omar tweeted: “Any shutdown call or call for ‘peaceful protests’ for Manzoor Ahmed whose decapitated body was found in North Kashmir after he’d been abducted & killed by militants? No? I’m not surprised.”