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| MHA directed to ensure CRPF’s cooperation with SIT | | DB appoints IG CID as SIT’s head, orders exhumation for DNA testing | | AHMED ALI FAYYAZ
SRINAGAR, Jul 3: Dissatisfied with the pace and progress of the Police investigation into the rape-cum-murder of two young women in Shopian, s Division Bench (DB) of Jammu & Kashmir High Court has ordered supervision of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) by Inspector General of Police CIG, Farooq Ahmed, and also asked the authorities to conduct a fresh forensic examination of the dead bodies, if necessary, with the permission of their family members. Shutdown in protest against the twin murder at the south Kashmir district headquarters has, meanwhile, completed 35 days.
After hearing arguments and counter-arguments from the petitioner High Court Bar Association (HCBA) and the respondent state government represented by Advocate General on Friday, a DB comprising Chief Justice of J&K High Court Mr Justice Barin Ghosh and Mr Justice Mohammad Yaqoob Mir today issued a set of directions in the matter of the investigation of rape-cum-murder of two young women, Neelofar and Asiya, at Shopian during the night intervening May 29 and 30.
As recorded in a 10-page order, DB has appointed IGP CID of J&K Police, Farooq Ahmed, as head of the SIT and directed that DIG Armed Police, Rauf-ul-Hassan, be also associated with the investigation. Over a month ago, Government had constituted three-member SIT and appointed SP Shah Deen Malik as its head. Recommended by HCBA, Farooq Ahmed has been already conducting a departmental inquiry into the conduct of four Police personnel, including the former SP of Shopian Javed Iqbal Matoo, who have been removed from their posting and placed under suspension, pending an inquiry against them. AG, Mohammad Ishaque Qadiri, had proposed the names of four IGPs, Mohammad Amin Anjum, Mohammad Amin Shah, Sheikh Owais and S M Sahai.
DB has also directed the expanded SIT to call and interrogate all the four suspended Police personnel (then SP of Shopian Javed Iqbal Matoo, then Dy SP Headquarters, then SHO Shopian and then Investigating Officer) and, if necessary, subject them to narco-analysis test. HCBA had strongly pleaded that their “lapses” tantamounted to complicity in the crime and, as such, their custodial interrogation and narco-analysis was indispensable in the investigation.
DB issued a direction to Ministry of Home Affairs of the Government of India to ensure that anybody from Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) required for interrogation by the SIT was deputed for the purpose. It ordered that CRPF should provide all cooperation to the SIT in conducting its business.
According to another direction, SIT would record the statements of two residents and cross examine Ghulam Mohiuddin Dar and Abdul Rasheed Pampori, who, as claimed by HCBA, were key witnesses and had spotted a Police vehicle in close vicinity of the spot some time after the two women had gone missing on May 29. DB also directed the SIT to prepare a list of all civilians and non-civilians, who had been present or putting up in a radius of 1000 meters around the spot of the recovery of two dead bodies. Petitioner HCBA has been requested to facilitate drawing of sketches of some members of the Gujjar community with the help of senior citizens of Shopian. These Gujjars had purportedly disappeared from the vicinity of Rambiara during the night intervening May 29 and 30. SIT has been directed to call and interrogate them so as to see what had made them leave the spot.
In another significant direction, DB has directed the SIT to go for exhumation of the dead bodies with the permission of their family members so that a fresh forensic examination and DNA could be conducted. It has been observed by all---SIT, Justice Jan’s Commission of Inquiry and now DB of J&K High Court---that vital evidences have been lost and the post mortem and FSL reports conducted earlier were inconclusive. DB has also directed an FSL run by union Ministry of Home Affairs to expedite its report. SIT would, as directed, match it with the earlier report prepared by J&K Police’s FSL. SIT has been asked to produce its case diary and status report of the investigation before the DB in a week’s time.
While AG, Mohammad Ishaque Qadiri, appeared and argued on behalf of the state government, HCBA was represented by its President, Mian Abdul Qayoom, Vice President Mohammad Abdullah Pandit, General Secretary Ghulam Nabi Shaheen and two executive members, namely Mufti Meraj and Bashir and Bashir.
Meanwhile, Shopian today observed shutdown on 35th consecutive day as hundreds of residents staged a protest sit-in. They covered their mouths with black bands to register that it was a completely peaceful demonstration. They have been demanding identification and arrest of the culprits while expressing dissatisfaction over the pace and progress of the investigation being conducted by SIT and an independent commission of inquiry headed by a retired judge of J&K High Court Mr Justice Muzaffar Jan. According to the case diaries and the status reports produced by SIT before CJM Shopian and now J&K High Court, Police are continuously groping in the dark.
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