Early Times Report
JAMMU, July 13: In the much publicized killing of four unarmed Indian Air Force (IAF) officers in Kashmir in 1990 in which TADA court had framed charges against Yasin Malik, Ali Mohammad Mir, Manzoor Ahmed Sofi alias Mustafa, Javed Ahmed Mir alias Nalka, Nana Ji alias Saleem, Javed Ahmed Zarger and Shoukat Ahmed Bakshi, Malik sought his physical appearance to cross examine the witnesses.
Malik said this after being produced in the court through video conferencing. Today when the matter was taken-up two official witnesses were produced by the CBI. The court adjourned the case and fixed August 22 as the next date of hearing.
The facts of the prosecution case as emerged after investigation by the CBI are that Bakshi hatched a criminal conspiracy to attack the security forces including IAF officials, stationed at Srinagar, in order to create terror among them & in the mind of general public and to destabilize the government of India, established by law.
Bakshi entered into criminal conspiracy with the other accused for executing the task. Dr Ghulam Qadir Sofi provided his residential accommodation situated at Hakim Bagh Rawalpora to be used as a hide-out for making plan and preparation by the accused persons and for keeping the illegal arms and ammunition, therein. Simultaneously, they procured a blue coloured Maruti Car JKE-3575 from Ali Mohammad Mir.
The accused armed themselves with Kalashnikov rifles and boarded as pillion riders on the motorcycle JKD-3705, being driven by the accused- Mushtaq Ahmed Lone, who was armed with .30 bore pistol & proceeded from the hideout towards the pickup points of IAF personnel, located near and around Rawalpora. Simultaneously, other group consisting of accused – Nana Ji, Manzoor Ahmed Sofi , Bakshi & Mohammad Rafiq Dar left from the hide-out towards the assigned destination in the car being driven by the accused- Javed Ahmed Zarger.
The CBI charge sheet said that Malik and Mir after de-boarding the motorcycle-walked towards IAF pick-up point situated in front of M/S Tantray general stores and immediately after reaching there, they started firing shots from the Klashnikov rifles upon the seven IAF officials namely -ML Nathian Cpl- U S Rajwar, Cpl SC Gupta, VK Sharma, LAC A. Ahmed. Cpl V U Shekhar and Cpl B.S Dhoni, causing them serious bullet injuries, out of them three air men namely A. Ahmed, V.U Shekhar & B.S. Dhone succumbed to their injuries.
Simultaneously, another group namely Nana Ji, Manzoor opened indiscriminate fire shots upon a group of 10/15 IAF officials causing serious bullet injuries to three of them namely- R C Joshi, P K Mishra & Sheela Shrivastva, who was proceeding on leave with her husband H.C. Shrivashtaba. Malik started indiscriminate fire on the running IAF personnel. Thereafter, after driving the motorcycle ahead, they found two more IAF officers in winter uniform namely B R Sharma & R.K Khanna. At this, the motorcycle stopped in front of them and at the same time Malik got down from the motorcycle and fired upon these two IAF officers. Both of them suffered grievous injuries, one of them namely- Khanna succumbed to his injuries on spot. Another group fired upon Air Force official namely- N K Rath, who, however, remained escaped unhurt, whereas, another Air force official namely Mohammad Saleem received bullet injury on his ankle. |
