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Onkar Singh in New Delhi
Investigations into the killing of two Dutch nationals in Srinagar on Sunday have revealed that they had assaulted Border Security Force personnel, prompting them to retaliate, Ashok Bhan, the Inspector General of Police, Kashmir, said on Thursday.
The two Dutch nationals, Ahmad el-Bakiouli and Kahliq El-Massnoui, had a criminal past, but their links with terrorist groups have not been established, Bhan told reporters.
They were killed by BSF men near the tourist area of Dal Lake on Sunday, following which an inquiry was ordered.
Their bodies could not be handed over to the staff of the Netherlands Embassy in Delhi due to severe weather conditions prevailing in the valley, which forced Indian Airlines to cancel its flight.
Speaking to rediff.com, G S Gill, Inspector General of BSF in Srinagar, said the bodies had been embalmed and they would be handed over to the officers of the Netherlands Embassy when they reach Srinagar.
"The bodies are being kept in the morgue of Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences in Soura, Srinagar," Gill said.
Giving details about the antecedents of the two men, Gill said the two had been missing from home and their parents had lodged a report with the Dutch police.
"They were missing since December 18. They got their visas to India on December 19. The two called their parents on January 9/10 from Srinagar to say that they were okay, but they did not tell them where they were," he said.
According to state police sources Massnoui had frequented a web site called www.maroc.nl 780 times in last six months.
He had posted several messages on the site, one of which read: "What are we going to tell Allah? What were we doing when kafirs were slaughtering our brethren in Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq and Chechnya?"
The intelligence officials maintain that the two probably wanted to go to Afghanistan, but could not get a visa for Pakistan. So they decided to come to Kashmir and tried to cross into Pakistan from the Indian side.
The police was trying to find out if the two had been denied visas by the Pakistan embassy in the Netherlands.
With inputs from PTI
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