American John Childs managed to escape on 17 August, while the rest have never been found, but are presumed dead by the Government of Jammu and Kashmir issuing death certificates for the four on 28 January 2003.
[8] The six victims included two British tourists, Keith Mangan of Middlesbrough and Paul Wells of Blackburn; two Americans, John Childs of Simsbury, Connecticut, and Donald Hutchings of Spokane, Washington; a German student, Dirk Hasert (14 August 1969–c.
[13] His body was taken to AIIMS, New Delhi, where a postmortem was conducted by Professor T. D. Dogra, who established that the beheading was the cause of death, and reported that the words "Al Faran" were carved onto his chest.
[19] Ghulam Nabi Mir was at the time leader of pro-Indian Islamic guerrilla group Muslim Mujaheddin, a fraction of Hizbul Mujahideen, who organized themselves into the Patriotic Peoples Front in 1995 or 1996 to contest local elections.
"In 1995, a small force from the unit was deployed in the Kashmir region of India in an attempt to find and free a Norwegian citizen who was held hostage and later beheaded by the Al-Faran guerrillas."
[24] The kidnappings were widely covered by western press and helped bring terrorism in Kashmir to the international communities attention.
[27] Masood Azhar was subsequently released in exchange for passengers aboard hijacked Indian Airlines Flight 814 along with Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh.