No ex gratia to Khalid's family: J&K govt clarifies

The Jammu and Kashmir government on Wednesday informed the Assembly that no ex gratia payment was made to the family of Khalid Wani, the brother of slain Hizb-ul-Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani.

Khalid was killed in an encounter with the army in April 2015. While the army claimed that Khalid was an overground worker of the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, his family insisted that he was “tortured to death” because his younger brother Burhan was a militant.

In December, the state government had announced an ex gratia payment for Khalid’s family under SRO-43. On December 12, a local English newspaper carried a public notice released by the office of the deputy commissioner of Pulwama district of South Kashmir in which ex gratia payments to the next of the kin of 17 people had been cleared. Khalid’s name featured in the list.