The families of two Srinagar businessmen who were killed during an alleged gunfight between militants and security forces last month have questioned a police special investigation team’s clean chit to the forces, claiming both were murdered in cold blood.

Businessmen Altaf Ahmad Bhat and Mudassir Gul, Aamir — Gul’s associate and a resident of Banihal in Jammu — and alleged Pakistani militant Bilal Bhai died in the alleged encounter in Srinagar’s Hyderpora locality.

On Tuesday, the SIT headed by deputy inspector-general Sujit Kumar endorsed the forces’ claim that militants had killed Gul and that Bhat had died in the crossfire after the militants used him as a human shield.

The BJP-friendly Apni Party on Wednesday staged a protest in Srinagar against the SIT report, joining other political parties in alleging a cover-up.

From day one, the families had accused the forces of using the businessmen as human shields and later killing them.

“Prima facie evidence shows Dr Mudassir Gul (a doctor turned businessman) was shot dead by the foreign militant on the directions possibly from across (the LoC),” the DIG told a news conference on Tuesday in the presence of Jammu and Kashmir police chief Dilbagh Singh and Kashmir inspector-general of police Vijay Kumar.

He said Bhat, owner of the building where the purported gunfight occurred, was used as a human shield by the militants.

Bhat’s brother Abdul Majeed trashed the police claim and said the forces had tortured Bhat before killing him.

“What were they doing when he was (allegedly) taken as a human shield by Bilal Bhai? There were 2,000 troops there; were they spectators?” Majeed said.

“I say, with regret, that Altaf Sahab was not killed by the militant but he was killed through interrogation (by the forces).”

Majeed said Bhat’s body bore multiple injuries, and suggested they were inflicted during interrogation by the forces. “His head was smashed and body parts broken. What the police are saying is a blatant lie,” he said.

Gul’s wife Humaria dismissed the police claim that her husband had ferried the alleged militant in his car and given him shelter at his office.

“They say Mudassir carried him in his car, why did not they arrest him then?” she said. “Those who did it (to us) are conducting the inquiry.”

The five-party Valley alliance fighting for restoration of Article 370 said the police claim was “only a repetition of the old story” and did “not even slightly give any objective picture of this shocking incident”.

“There is a strong public perception that the civilians killed in the incident were made human shields by the security forces and the latest statement of the police seems to be a concocted cover-up story. It will not suffice the legitimate concerns of the people at large and family of the slain victims,” alliance spokesperson Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami said in a statement.

The People’s Conference, considered close to the BJP, said the probe result was predictable. “No change in a comma or full stop and a reiteration and replication of thousands of probes held in the past. We don’t even have a modicum of belief that the government will actually have the moral courage to own a wrong and apologise,” the People’s Conference spokesperson said.

He said the “gist of all probes in the past has always been that the government of the day can never be wrong”.