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The bodies were brought to the nearest police station at Mahore for identification, since the locals of the area could not identify them. The police, after conducting postmortem, handed the bodies to the village elders for burial.

On November 4, 2003, sources confirmed that one terrorist had been killed but the two others could not be identified. While investigation was on to identify the two, civilians again approached the Army to provide assistance in identification of the two buried civilians, to which the Army provided necessary assistance as per the orders of DC, Udhampur, and the bodies were thus exhumed.

The Army was in no way involved in killing and burying civilians as alleged.
— Colonel Anil Shorey, (PRO) Army Directorate of Public Relations, Ministry of Defence, New Delhi

Arun Sharma replies:

To say that the Army was in no way involved in the killing of civilians in Gool is either an attempt to conceal facts or the PRO has been misled by the unit concerned. In fact, Additional Commissioner (Revenue) Abdul Hafiz, who has been assigned by Deputy Commissioner Ashok Parmar to hold a magisterial inquiry into the killing of civilians, had issued notices to officers of 19 Madras and local villagers of Dehda (Gool) asking them to appear before him at his office in Udhampur on November 19 to explain their position in the case.

The villagers, including close relations of the deceased, had in a written complaint to the Assistant Commissioner (R) on November 8, 2003, alleged that the two civilians—Abdul Majid and Abdul Karim—were picked along with some other villagers from their respective houses by a party of 19 Madras on the morning of November 3.

The PRO says that after the encounter, the bodies were taken to the nearest Mahore police station for identification. But the fact is that the militant and two civilians were killed in the forest area of Dehda and then taken to Jamsalan, which is at least 50-60 km away. While Dehda falls in Gool tehsil, Jamsalan is in Mahore tehsil. How could people of Jamsalan identify the bodies of people who actually hailed from Dehda in Gool tehsil?

It is also incorrect to say that troops were conducting investigations to identify the deceased as villagers of Dehda had been holding a dharna in front of the office of the Gool tehsildar since November 5—the day both the civilians were buried at Jamsalan.

It was only after the Deputy Commissioner, Udhampur, ordered a magisterial inquiry on November 8 that the bodies were exhumed next morning. This was done in presence of officers of 19 Madras and villagers.