Ten days after he went missing, the bullet-riddled body of a panch from Srinagar was found on Friday in an orchard of Ratnipora in Shopian district.
A police official said the locals spotted the body and informed the police.
He was identified as Nisar Ahmad Bhat, a panch from Khonmoh in the outskirts of Srinagar.
Bhat was missing after he went to Shopian on August 19 after which the family filed the missing report with the police.
Earlier an unverified audio had gone viral wherein purportedly militants claimed to have killed the panch saying the body was not returned because of Covid19 pandemic.
Earlier this month the militants in an audio clip had claimed to have abducted and killed an army personnel, Shakir Manzoor, from Reeshipora Shopian and said they performed his last rites on their own.
The reason for not handing over the body was attributed to Covid19 pandemic and the militants’ bodies being denied to their families by the police.
Lately, police have been denying bodies to the families of local militants and are burying them in far off northern Kashmir villages.