J&K POLICE SAY HUMANSHIELD PROBE TO GO ON
SRINAGAR:The police probe into an army major using a Kashmiri man as a human shield will continue, a senior official said on Tuesday, even as rights body Amnesty accused the Indian armed forces of glorifying the “degrading treatment” by awarding the officer.
Major Leetul Gogoi was accused of rights abuse by activists after he tied Farooq Ahmad Dar to the front of an army jeep on April 9 and paraded the man through several villages.
The army chief awarded the officer for “sustained efforts” in counter-insurgency operations on Monday.
On Tuesday, Gogoi defended his act in his first public comments since the incident which sparked outrage in Kashmir.
FIVE CIVILIANS WERE KILLED BY THE ARMY IN AN ALLEGED FAKE ENCOUNTER IN PATHRIBAL BUT THE FORCE GAVE ITSELF A CLEAN CHIT
NEWDELHI:Major Leetul Gogoi, the officer in the eye of the ‘human shield’ storm, has trouble coming his way.
Kashmir police, who registered an FIR in the case last month, have refused to drop the case against him.
So what happens from here on? Kashmir police can carry on the investigation against the officer but they cannot arrest him.
In case they want to question the officer, the cops can, at the most, go to the army cantonment and question him under the supervision of army officers.
After the completion of the investigation, a charge sheet will be filed in a criminal court against the officer.
It is at this stage that the army will step in and inform the court that the officer should not be tried in the normal criminal court. The army will offer to court martial the officer, like in the Pathribal case.
Meanwhile, the parallel proceedings of Court of Inquiry by the army really have no meaning as a criminal investigation is still under way.
PATHRIBAL CASE
On March 24, 2000, five civilians from south Kashmir, including a 50-year-old man, were killed by the army in an alleged fake encounter in Pathribal.
The army dubbed the victims foreign militants belonging to the Lashkar-e-Taiba and said they were responsible for the killing of 35 Sikhs in Chattisinghpora. However, subsequently allegations emerged that the men were civilians picked up from different parts of south Kashmir and killed in a fake encounter, following which their bodies were charred beyond recognition.
In January 2014, the army gave itself a clean chit in the Pathribal encounter case and decided not to court martial its seven top officers, saying there was no evidence to proceed against them.
Following widespread protests, the Jammu and Kashmir government ordered the exhumation of bodies and DNA tests to ascertain the identity of the men killed by the army. Investigations confirmed that the men were civilians who had gone missing from south Kashmir.
The case was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which charged five army officers — Ajay Saxena, Brijendra Pratap Singh, Sourabh Sharma, Amit Saxena and Idress Khan, all belonging to the 7 Rashtriya Rifles — with abduction, murder, criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence.
While the CBI filed a charge sheet against the army officers before the chief judicial magistrate in Srinagar, the army objected on the grounds that prior sanction under Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) is needed for prosecuting army officials. The objection, however, was turned down by the court.
After failing to get reprieve from the local court and the J&K high court, the army moved the Supreme Court which, in 2012, gave the army full discretion to choose between a court martial and a criminal trial for accused officers. The army chose court martial, but later exonerated all five officers for want of evidence.