Turkish prosecutors have begun to investigate allegations that a pair of Kurdish farmers were brutally beaten and thrown out of a military helicopter in the southeastern province of Van on Sept. 11 in a case that has recalled the horrors inflicted on locals at the height of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) insurgency in the 1990s.

Images of the bloodied faces of Osman Siban, 50, and Servet Turgut, 55, circulating online have provoked an uproar in the Kurdish community, with lawmakers from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) demanding that a parliamentary commission be set up to investigate the affair. Turgut is in critical condition in a hospital in Van. “My father is in a coma. He has brain trauma, 11 broken ribs, a punctured lung and doctors say his chances of survival are poor,” said Turgut’s only son, Huseyin in a telephone interview with Al-Monitor. “We demand justice but the state wants to bury the truth, to cover it up,” he said.

Siban, who was discharged from a military hospital this week, is suffering from dizzy spells and memory loss. “He is absolutely terrified. He’s lost his sense of time and place. When he speaks it’s childlike blubbering,” said Hamit Kocak, one of three lawyers who lodged charges of deliberate manslaughter, torture and dereliction of duties against the alleged perpetrators on behalf of the men’s families. Siban is recovering from his injuries in the coastal city of Mersin, where he spends his winters, and was not available for comment.

The government denies the allegations and is investigating the men separately for “aiding and abetting a terrorist organization.” The catchall label has been leveled against thousands of Kurdish politicians, activists, journalists and others who continue to be prosecuted and jailed, often on flimsy evidence since a two-and-a-half-year cease-fire between the PKK and the state collapsed in July 2015.