More than five months after three young men from Rajouri they were killed in shopian In an Army operation on July 18, J&K Police filed a charge sheet, charging an Army Captain and two civilians with their alleged kidnapping and murder.
The 300-page charge sheet establishes a “prima facie” case of murder, kidnapping and destruction of evidence against Captain Bhoopendra Singh and two civilians, Tabish Nazir, a resident of Shopian, and Bilal Ahmad Lone of Pulwama, on the basis of the evidence gathered during the investigation conducted by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) created to investigate the alleged false encounter.
Presented before the Chief Session Judge, Shopian, the charge sheet states that the three young men from Rajouri – Imtiyaz Ahmad (20) and Mohammad Abrar (16), residents of Dharsakri village, and Abrar Ahmad (25) of the village from Tarkasi from Kotranka Rajouri – were “kidnapped” from their rented accommodation in Shopian and then killed.
Both the J&K Army and Police had previously claimed that the three young men were unidentified militants and had discreetly buried them in a cemetery in Baramulla, northern Kashmir. On October 3, the J&K government exhumed the bodies of the three workers killed overnight in the presence of relatives and handed them over to the families.
The Indian Express reported Friday that the Army had conducted an Evidence Summary and found an Army officer guilty of the murder of the three Rajouri youths. The next step in the process is a court martial. Earlier on September 18, the Army Investigative Court confirmed that the three murdered youths were Rajouri workers.
The J&K police charge sheet reads: “A vehicle (A-Star) used for the abduction and transportation of the victims was seized as evidence.” The army officer’s “offensive weapon” has been seized and shipped to CFSL, Chandigarh.
According to the charge sheet, the officer and the two civilians have been charged under Section 302 (murder), Section 364 (kidnapping), Section 201 (destruction of evidence), Section 436, 120-B (criminal conspiracy to commit an offense punishable by death) and Section 182 of the Indian Penal Code and Section 7/25 of the Indian Weapons Act (possession or carrying of prohibited weapons or ammunition).
Although the accused civilians, Tabish and Bilal, have been arrested and are in judicial custody, the Captain “has not yet been arrested for procedures under AFSAP (Law on Special Powers of the Armed Forces) and the Army Law, while A sanction is also required to initiate a process against him ”.
The charge sheet states that the interrogation of the two civilians led to the recovery of a Maruti Alto car and some mobile phones from the “Victor Force Awantipora camp”. In addition to examining all the call detail records, it details the planning, the kidnapping of the young man, the routes taken and the prior arrangement of illegal weapons by the defendants.
The army officer, the charge sheet said, deceived his officers and colleagues. He claims that he “provided false information to mislead superior officers and to have the FIR search tailored to his motive for taking prize money in support of a criminal conspiracy.”
One of the accused civilians, Bilal Ahmad Lone, became an approver and his statement has been registered under Section 164 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC). DNA analysis by CFSL, Chandigarh, post-mortem report and missing report of three Rajouri families led to the identification of the three civilian victims, according to the charge sheet.
.
