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| Decks being cleared for CBI probe | | SHOPIAN FIASCO ROCKS ASSEMBLY | | High Court indicates Godhra-type inquiry,
FSL report confirms vaginal swab fudging
Ahmed Ali Fayaz
Srinagar, Aug 12: SRINAGAR, Aug 12: Even as the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) of the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) today confirmed in a report submitted to Jammu & Kashmir High Court (HC) that the vaginal swab slides prepared by a team of south Kashmir doctors and forwarded to it by a Special Investigating Team (SIT) of J&K Police had been manually tampered with and Assembly witnessed a pandemonium, National Conference-led coalition Government has begun clearing decks for assigning the investigation of the entire episode of alleged rape-cum-murder of two young women in Shopian to the CBI. Omar Abdullah’s government has been dogged by an unrelenting chain of turbulence since the bodies of 25-year-old married woman, Neelofar, and, 17-year-old unmarried student, Asiya, were recovered from Rambiara Nallah on May 30th this year amid mass allegation of rape-cum-murder against Police and security forces.
With the members from PDP, NC, CPI (M), as also independent MLA Sheikh Abdul Rashid, agitating the matter of the fresh incident of DNA fudging and seeking adjournment of the scheduled business at the beginning of the Question Hour in Legislative Assembly, Speaker Mohammad Akbar Lone granted a special discussion over the outrageous act of invisible hands attempting to manipulate investigation into the south Kashmir tragedy. Numerous MLAs waved copies of yesterday’s ‘The Hindu’ in which Associate Editor Praveen Swami had reported FSL’s observation that the vaginal swab submitted to the laboratory for DNA testing was not that of the two women found dead in Shopian.
Highly placed authoritative sources, meanwhile, disclosed to Early Times that the exposure of attempted DNA fudging had immediately brought a particular lady doctor and some Police officials under tight scanner and the official agencies were processing the call records of some doctors, Police officials, Srinagar-based lawyers and residents of Shopian.
In her detailed speech in Assembly, PDP President Mehbooba Mufti reiterated her apprehensions that “people in high offices’ had been continuously attempting to hide the criminals and their invisible hands were visibly at work to manipulate the investigation. “These things do not happen at SP’s level. People from top offices seem to be at work”, she alleged and reiterated her accusation that the ruling NC workers had planned an attack on her life when she had visited Shopian two days after the tragedy had surfaced in May.
Ms Mufti warned that “interventions” into the functioning of institutions could lead to a far more explosive situation in the state and shatter the peoples’ faith in the country’s democratic institutions. She said that exposure of the attempted fraud in DNA testing was reminiscent of the fudging witnessed in identification of the killers of five innocent civilians in Anantnag district nine years ago. Without being specific about names, she expressed that today’s DNA fudging was similar to the one that had happened when Army had killed five innocent civilians and labeled them all as “foreign militants responsible for killing of 35 Sikhs at Chittisinghpura” during Dr Farooq Abdullah’s NC Government in 2000.
CBI has since completed investigation into the killing of five civilians in Pathribal “encounter”, held troops of Rashtriya Rifles 7th Bn guilty of the carnage and produced a challan against them in the court of Principal District & Sessions Judge Srinagar.
Speaker Lone interrupted Ms Mufti and repeatedly asked her what exactly was her own and her party’s demand for smooth and credible investigation into the Shopian incident so that the criminals could be identified and brought to justice. She maintained that “Government’s intentions” were not clear. Even as Speaker desired to know if PDP would have faith in CBI or some other kind of investigation, PDP camp refused to be specific as it wanted to refer to the Pathribal carnage but not to the subsequent fact of the CBI having established its credibility by conducting a clean investigation and holding the Army guilty of doing certain criminal acts under the smokescreen of insurgency in Kashmir.
On the other hand, most of the MLAs from NC, independent MLA Sheikh Abdul Rashid and CPI (M) State Secretary, Mohammad Yusuf Tarigami, while invariably expressing grief over the entire Shopian tragedy, insisted that Government of Jammu & Kashmir should assign the investigation to CBI. They invariable maintained that CBI was the country’s only investigation agency which had not only credibility and experience but also all necessary wherewithal to conduct such technically crucial investigations.
Prof Chaman Lal Gupta of BJP, however, insisted that the investigation be handed over to a judge of Supreme Court of India. Harsh Dev Singh of National Panthers Party also shared the concern over the Shopian riddle and said that the investigation should go either to a Supreme Court judge or to CBI.
Later in the afternoon, Minister of Finance, Abdul Rahim Rather, made a statement on behalf of Chief Minister Omar Abdullah that Government was clear in its act and intention from the day one and it had nothing to hide. He said that the Government had no hesitation in assigning the investigation to CBI but pointed out that the entire process of investigation being conducted by SIT was being monitored by a Division Bench of J&K High Court. He said it was not a normal practice to debate matters which were sub judice but made it clear that Government would do whatever the House desired.
Later, Speaker Lone proposed on behalf of all members, irrespective of party affiliations, that Government should convey Assembly’s “unanimous” aspiration to the High Court and seek its clearance before formally assigning the investigation to CBI. Speaker and Mr Rather agreed that Government would approach the High Court on the next working day.
Meanwhile, SIT today produced a status report before the DB, comprising Chief Justice Barin Ghosh and Mr Justice Mohamamd Yasqoob Mir, on a scheduled date of hearing. It also produced the report received from CBI’s FSL which, according to informed sources, confirmed that the vaginal swab sent to the laboratory belonged to unidentified women and not to the two whose killing was under investigation. Chief Justice observed that Court was extremely serious in monitoring of the investigation and in case SIT had failed in the matter, it would have no hesitation to order an investigation by a national-level team of experts on the pattern of Godhra incident in Gujarat.
Without issuing any orders, DB adjourned the hearing till August 18th. |
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