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| Who assigned Pathribal to CBI? Did CBI shield culprits? | | |
Ahmed Ali Fayyaz
SRINAGAR, Aug 15: Interrupting her emotional speech over the tragedy of rape-cum-murder of two young women in Shopian on the floor of House on August 12th, Speaker Mohammad Akbar Lone asked PDP chief, Mehbooba Mufti, as many as 12 times as to what specifically should replace the Police investigation in the wake of reported DNA fudging. Striking on left, right and the center, she refused to be categorical. Lone suggested that the complaining members would have to propose something concrete and specific if they had faith neither in a commission of enquiry comprising a retired judge of J&K High Court nor in the Special Investigating Team (SIT) headed by IGP Kashmir.
While BJP’s Prof Chaman Lal Gupta asserted that the investigation into the entire Shopian episode should be assigned to a judge of Supreme Court of India, members from almost all other political parties, notably the ruling National Conference (NC), insisted that the challenging task of identifying, arresting and prosecuting the culprits be handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI).
Winding up the specially granted discussion, Speaker Lone passed a typical remark on the PDP camp: “You people are confused on it”. Party’s MLA from Pahalgam, Rafi Ahmed Mir, grabbed the opportunity of becoming a trouble-shooter for the Opposition as he suggested: “We leave it to the chair”. And the chair, asserting his credentials of being a ‘son of the soil’, wasted no time to propose that “on the basis of unanimity in this House”, he was directing the Government to assign the investigation to the CBI. He asked the Government to seek necessary approval from J&K High Court, which had been monitoring the SIT proceedings since beginning of June. There was no murmur of disagreement---leave alone protest---from Ms Mufti’s party.
In a widely circulated statement from the PDP headquarters within three hours, Ms Mufti repeated what she has been alleging since long---‘Government’s intention is not clear’ etc. She dismissed Speaker’s direction to the Government as “yet another attempt to cover up the brutality”. “She said that the CBI was being used as a tool to cover up atrocities on the people and the decision (of handing over the Shopian investigation to CBI) is yet another eyewash to bury the truth in Shopian incident”, reads the PDP statement.
Ms Mufti appears to be angry with CBI for the fact that in the Srinagar sex scandal investigation it had refused to act on the directions issued to it by a Division Bench of J&K High Court for arresting and interrogating certain “influential people”. Director of CBI had challenged the DB order and got a desired direction from Supreme Court of India which left it to the Investigating Officer as to who were to be arrested and interrogated.
In the J&K HC order, dated 8th October 2007, there were definitely the names of “influential persons” which the DB, with minor difference, wanted to be arrested and interrogated, but not the PDP’s key targets---Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah. Sixteen persons the DB had named included a former Chairman of J&K Bank, one sitting MLA who was then a Minister in PDP-Congress coalition, two more MLAs and ex-Ministers of then ruling coalition, two Congress leaders including a lady Councilor of Srinagar Municipal Corporation, then DG Prisons, one DIG, two SSPs, one ex-SP, a nondescript businessman, a prominent hotelier and a “Gora Chitta Commissioner” who remained unidentified. Equipped with the Supreme Court order, CBI maintained that it would not proceed against anybody in absence of “corroborated evidence”.
Even at the stage of transferring the trial to a District & Sessions Court in Chandigarh, a bench comprising then Chief Justice, Y K Sabharwal, and Justice C K Thakker had earlier on September 4th, 2006, observed on the type of the “shame list” and accusations now being raised by Mr Baig: “To say the least, the averments are vague and fully irresponsible”. It had added: “…it is only in India where such things are tolerated. In no other democratic country, such types of averments are permitted". As long as there is no self-rule and autonomy in J&K, one has to abide by the principal of finality and superiority of the Supreme Court.
For reasons never explained, the Government, of which PDP was a partner in 2006-08, did not honour DB’s order of constituting a special team of honest officers, headed by a DIG, for exclusively investigating sex and drug related matters in the state. It did not even initiate any proceedings against the hotels DB had mentioned for action.
The “list” of 192 names, which Dukhtaraan-e-Millat chief Asiya Andrabi repeatedly threatened to release for over 20 times in one year--- but didn’t--- was finally unfolded by PDP’s legal luminary Muzaffar Hussain Baig on the second day of Business in current session of Assembly. For PDP’s bad luck, it was quickly disowned by the agency it had been attributed to.
Fact remains that until yesterday, CBI was for PDP “the country’s most credible and well equipped investigating agency”. Mr Baig himself is on record and he has been claiming credit for it that it was he---as then Deputy Chief Minister---who had written a letter to Chief Minister Azad who had, on his recommendations, assigned the investigation of Srinagar sex scandal to the CBI in May 2006.
Ms Mufti referred to half of the Pathribal story in her speech on Wednesday last. She said that attempt of vaginal swab fudging was reminiscent of the DNA fudging when the investigation was looking for the killers of five innocent civilians, killed as “foreign militants” at Pathribal in Anantnag by Army in March 2000. She stopped there. Remaining part of the story is that it was none other than then Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed who had handed over the investigation of the Pathribal carnage to CBI in January 2003.
After completing over three-year-long investigation, CBI on May 11th, 2006, filed charges of murder, abduction with intention to murder, wrongful confinement, criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence against Brigadier Ajay Saxena, Lt Col B P Singh, Major Saurabh Sharma, Major Amit Saxena and Junior Commissioned Officer Idrees Khan who had conceived and executed the plan of kidnapping and killing the five Anantnag civilians as “foreign terrorists” in a fake encounter at Pathribal.
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