Amid lockdown, man fakes own death to reach home in J&K’s Poonch

Giving details, SHO Surankote Anil Sharma said that Hakam Din, 60, of village Sailan was injured in an attack and admitted to the Government Medical College on March 27. He was discharged on Monday.

In view of the countrywide lockdown, as movement of all sorts of vehicular traffic and individuals except essential supplies is banned across the UT, Hakam Din along with his associates managed to get a fake death certificate purported to have been issued by a Casualty Medical Officer at Government Medical College Hospital.

“Dead body shifted from GMC hospital to Baflaiz Saillan. In between the crisis of coronavirus, nobody should disturb them,” reads the certificate. However, police were yet to check the veracity of the death certificate.

One of his accomplice included Mohammad Ashraf who was returning home from Punjab. He had met Hakam Din at the GMC Hospital.

The certificate also mentioned the name of the ambulance driver as Abid Hussain of Thandkot Rajouri. From Jammu, they managed to cross all police nakas by saying that they were carrying a dead body.

However, when they were a few kms short of their destination, a police naka party intercepted them at Buffliaz and checked the ambulance only to find there was no body inside it. The cops immediately informed the SHO Surankote who ordered the arrests of all the four people and seizure of the ambulance. Later, police registered a case against them and sent all of them to a quarantine facility for 14 days.