The Army is once again in the dock as the preliminary police investigations have proved involvement of its men in yet another incident of fake encounter killings near the Line of Control (LoC).
The bodies of the victims were exhumed from a Muslim cemetery at Kalaroos in frontier Kupwara district on Friday. These three youngsters were missing from Nadihal village, outside north-western town of Sopore for last one month. The bodies were handed over to the relatives of victims after postmortem.
The police has, meanwhile, registered murder cases against an Army major and his unit and their civilian collaborators, including a former special police officer who have already been arrested.
The Army has assured the chief minister and the people that expeditious action to bring guilty to book will be taken.
The Army had in April claimed that it killed three “infiltrating terrorists” in an encounter in Machael sector near the de facto border. Defence spokesperson Lt. Col. J.S. Brar had said here on April 30, “At around 3 am today, the Army men deployed along the LoC observed three terrorists trying to cross over to this side through Machael sector in Kupwara district. On being challenged, they opened fire on the troopers. The fire was returned and in the ensuing gunfight, all three terrorists were killed. Five AK-rifles, a pistol and some ammunition were recovered from the encounter site. The identities of the slain terrorists are being ascertained. Probably they tried to use bad weather conditions to sneak in. But the alert troops foiled their attempt.”
But the slain men turned out to be three Nadihal youth, allegedly lured by a group of Ikhwanis as the renegades are known locally, including SPO working for the Army and were relocated to one of its units near the LoC on the promise that they would be provided jobs by it.
Kupwara tehsildar Abdur Rashid Shah said that though the faces of the slain men had been slightly mutilated, the relatives and neighbours identified them as the missing youth Shahzad Ahmed,20, Riyaz Ahmad Lone,17, and Mohammad Shafi Lone, 22.