The Army has closed the case against five soldiers accused of killing five civilians and trying to pass them off as terrorists at Pathribal in Anantnag district of Jammu & Kashmir in 2000, citing "lack of evidence" in the probe.
The Supreme Court in 2012 had given the option to the Army to either itself try the soldiers -- including one who retired as a Major-General last year, two serving Colonels and a Lt-Colonel - or let the proceedings against them continue before a civil court in Srinagar. This had come after the CBI chargesheeted the accused, describing the extra-judicial killings as "cold-blooded murder".
The Army said it had undertaken ``a comprehensive and exhaustive" effort to record the evidence against all the accused, examining forensic and documentary evidence as well as over 50 witnesses including civilians, state police and government officials.
``The evidence recorded could not establish a prime-facie case against any of the accused but clearly established that it was a joint operation by the J&K Police and the Army based on specific intelligence. The chief judicial magistrate in Srinagar has been apprised of the closure of the case on January 21," said an Army spokesperson.
With the Army insisting on trying them, the abrupt closure of the long-pending controversial case triggered immediate criticism from human rights groups as well as state politicians on Friday. "A matter as serious as Pathribal can't be closed or wished away like this more so with the findings of the CBI so self evident," said chief minister Omar Abdullah, expressing his ``extreme disappointment".
Opposition People's Democratic Party leader Mufti Mohammed Sayeed described the Army's move as "miscarriage of justice". Holding that it was a huge setback to efforts of reconciliation and justice, he said, "There have been many instances in which standards of justice applied to incidents taking place in J&K have been found short of the universal standards applied in rest of the country. The Pathribal atrocity stood out even among them for its cruelty and context."
The killing of the five civilians, aged between 22 and 50, had rocked the Valley in 2000. Their bodies were burnt beyond recognition to pass them off as the terrorists who had killed 35 Sikhs in Chattisingpora on the eve of the then US President Bill Clinton's visit to India on March 25, 2000.
Matters had taken a turn for the worse when seven protestors had been killed as CRPF jawans fired on a group of people demanding a proper probe into the alleged fake encounter on April 3, 2000.
With the state government finally ordering a probe into the case, the bodies of the five were exhumed. After the first lot of DNA samples were found to have been tampered with, a fresh DNA test later proved they were innocent civilians and not foreign terrorists.
A judicial inquiry had also found the Army soldiers and J&K cops guilty of staging the encounter before the case was handed over to the CBI for "extensive investigations". The CBI had exonerated the police but charged the then Brig Ajay Saxena, Lt-Col Brahendra Pratap Singh, Majors Saurabh Sharma and Amit Saxena and Subedar Idrees Khan with criminal conspiracy, murder and kidnapping.
The Army appealed against the CBI chargesheet before the Supreme Court saying it was filed without the Centre's mandatory sanction as per the provisions of the draconian Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), which gives sweeping powers to armed forces besides providing them immunity against prosecution.
The apex court gave the Army the option to court-martial the five despite the CBI insistence that they were involved in the "fake encounter", which does not give them immunity under AFSPA.
Human rights groups decried the Army's move to close the case. "The Indian Army's recent statements declaring 'zero tolerance' for human rights violations in J&K ring hollow after its decision to close the Pathribal fake encounter case," said Amnesty International spokeswoman Christine Mehta. "The Army's closure of the case brazenly disregards the findings of the CBI and the rights of the families of the victims`," she added.
via Times Of India
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