Court orders FIR against Kathua SIT members
A court in Jammu on Tuesday directed the Jammu & Kashmir police to register an FIR against six members of its Special Investigation Team (SIT) that probed the gangrape and murder of an eightyear-old nomad girl in the state’s Kathua district in January 2018 for allegedly torturing and coercing witnesses to give false statements.
The order comes four months after six people were convicted in the case. Of these, three main convicts in the gang-rape-and-murder case were given life imprisonment.
Judicial magistrate Prem Sagar gave the direction to senior superintendent of police (SSP) of Jammu on an application by Sachin Sharma, Neeraj Sharma and Sahil Sharma.
Directing registration of FIR against the then SSP RK Jalla (now retired), ASP Peerzada Naveed, deputy superintendents of police Shetmbari Sharma and Nissar Hussain, sub-inspector Urfan Wani and Kewal Kishore of crime branch of police, court asked SSP (Jammu) to report compliance by next date of hearing on November 11.
A court in Jammu on Tuesday directed the Jammu and Kashmir police to register an FIR against six members of its Special Investigation Team (SIT) that probed the gang-rape-and-murder of an eightyear-old nomad girl in the state’s Kathua district in January 2018 for allegedly torturing and coercing witnesses to give false statements.
Judicial magistrate Prem Sagar gave the direction to senior superintendent of police (SSP) of Jammu on an application by Sachin Sharma, Neeraj Sharma and Sahil Sharma, who were witnesses in the case, saying cognizable offences are made out against the six.
In his order, the sub-judge asked the police to register the FIR against Ramesh Kumar Jalla (former SSP Crime Branch, Jammu), Peerzada Naveed (additional superintendent of police Crime Branch, Jammu), Shwetambari Sharma (deputy SP crime branch, Jammu), Nassir Hussain (deputy SP crime branch Jammu) Urfan Wani (subinspector crime branch Jammu) and Kewal Kishore (crime branch).
The court order reads, “From the gist of the complaint, cognisable offences are made out against the members of the SIT. Therefore, application of the applicant under section 153 (3) CrPc is allowed with the direction to SSP Jammu to register FIR against the non-applicants under relevant provisions of law and report compliance by next date of hearing on November 11.”
The specially convened Pathankot fast-track court headed by district and sessions judge Tejwinder Singh had in June, this year awarded life imprisonment to the three main convicts in the gangrape-and-murder case.