PALAKKAD: Ahead of the night of Operation Sindoor, family members of Muhammed Shanib, a native of Kanjirapuzha in Kerala’s Palakkad district, ended up receiving the news they were all dreading.

They told The New Indian Express that a senior officer from the Gulmarg police station informed them on Tuesday, around 7.30 pm, that Shanib had been found dead in tragic circumstances in Kashmir.

The officer told them that his team had retrieved Shanib’s body, which bore signs of having been mauled by wild animals, from a terror-prone forest area.

26-year-old Shanib was the son of Karuvanthodi Veettil Abdul Samad and wife Haseena residing in the ninth ward of the Kanhirapuzha grama panchayat and had gone incommunicado for a few weeks.

“Shanib had been working in Bengaluru as an accountant at a private company and he came home on April 5. He went back to Bengaluru again on the night of April 13 by train. Since then, he hadn’t been in touch with us. He didn’t answer any calls from relatives and would only text back saying he was busy with work. We are shocked to know that he reached Kashmir, because he did not know anyone there,” said Abdul Salam, elder brother of Shanib’s mother, .

Other relatives and the president of Kanhirapuzha grama panchayat Sathi Ramarajan said Shanib had shown signs of mental health concerns in the past after a failed attempt to clear the medicine entrance examination.

“After a few years, he started taking up electrical work in the village and it was only three months ago that he went to Bengaluru. His sister is residing in Bengaluru and he used to keep touch with family members until the recent past,” said a relative.