-Rajesh Tyagi/ 15 July 2009
Jammu and Kashmir High Court today directed the special investigating team probing the rape and murder of two women in Shopian, 17-year-old Asiya Jan and her 22-year-old pregnant sister in-law Neelofar, to arrest and produce the four suspended police officers in the court and get their blood samples to ascertain if these officers are involved in the crime.
The directions have come in the wake of unrelenting and violent huge mass protests in Srinagar by the people of Kashmir. The situation seemed to be going totally out of the control of not only of local administration but of the armed forced deployed there.
Bodies of the two young women, were found near a stream in Shopian on May 30 triggering massive protests and strikes in the Kashmir valley.
The Jan Commission appointed to probe the case had in its interim report submitted on June 21 recommended action against the four police officers including the then SP Shopian, Javid Iqbal Mattoo and his deputy Rohit Baskotra. It observed that the four officers had not only failed to follow the set procedures after the bodies of Neelofar and Asiya were recovered, but have conspired to destroy the evidence. In its interim report, the commission had recommended suspension of four police officers, two doctors and a forensic officer for negligence and destruction of evidence. The dubious autopsy and forensic report prepared by these medical experts, was a clear attempt to divert the evidence.
"The doctors who were to conduct the post-mortem could not complete their report because of hostile atmosphere”, the post mortem report said. While confirming the presence of semen on both the bodies, it deliberately did not draw a firm conclusion on murder saying “the probable cause of the deaths was haemorrhage and neurogenic shock."
Even after the clear interim report of inquiry commission, none of the officials, police or doctors, were arrested, but only suspended on June 22, to cool down the nerves of public. The Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and his cabinet members, with the help of bureaucracy, continued to aid the culprits, insisting that the women had died due to drowning. In view of this hush up by the government, the people intensified their protests.
On 4 July, the division bench of the High Court, comprising Chief Justice Barin Gosh and Justice Mohammad Yaqub Mir, acting on a Public Interest Litigation filed by the Kashmir High Court Bar Association, noted that neither DNA samples of the bodies were collected by the investigators, nor the post-mortem was carried out in proper manner, and directed exhumation of the bodies of the victims, to collect their DNA samples and for a fresh post-mortem with consent of their parents.
While appointing the principal of medical college Srinagar to set up a team of doctors to perform the Post mortem, the Court had observed, “This is a sensational matter. Every man on the street, irrespective of caste or creed, is praying for the culprits to be caught". The court appointed inspector general of police (CID) Farooq Ahmad as special officer inquiry and DIG Rouf-ul-Hassan as his deputy to monitor the proceedings of the special investigation team (SIT) inquiring into the case. Ahmad is also carrying out an internal departmental probe into alleged negligence of duty by four suspended police officials including the former SP, Shopian, whose results have not come out till date.
The court also directed the SIT headed by SP Shah Din Malik to interrogate and carry out narco-analysis test of four suspended police officials and two witnesses. It asked the SIT to submit its progress report every week to the Court.
However, the protestors becoming sure of involvement of very high-ups in the crime of rape and murder of young women, looked up at this also as insufficient measure, leading to nowhere and continued with protests. With protests intensifying, the situation continued to become more and more grim leading to rapid loss of legitimacy of civilian government and the central and state armed forces.
The one man Jan Commission, headed by Justice (Retd) Muzaffar Jan, that probed this double rape and murder case, which triggered violent protests across the Kashmir valley, on July 9, submitted its 150-page final report, directly indicting security forces for the crime.
The Chief Minister Omar Abdullah was forced to direct for registration of the crime of rape and murder and appoint the inquiry commission after angry protests over the rape and murder of the two women, had rocked the Valley.
In view of the situation fuming more and more, the government on 14 July, has directed transfer of more than 50 officials of civil administration and police, but this is too late in the day. People are not ready to be wooed by these tactics of the government. More protests have continued today.
Taking note of the gravity of the situation on the streets, the High Court had once again issued directions today, wherein besides directing the SIT to get the blood samples of the four officers in presence of the court registrar, it has ordered that no relief including bail should be granted by any court to these four suspended police officers and all such requests be sent to the High Court.
The court also requested the Central government to provide facilities for narco-analysis of the four police officers.
The High Court also appealed to the people of Shopian to end the strike and co-operate with the investigating team, which hardly is the business of the High Court.
The repression by the armed forces upon the protests has left five people dead and more than 400 injured. The government’s initial insistence that the two had drowned, and its conscious efforts to shield the perpetrators of the crime, has further fuelled the protests with Shopian town observing a complete shutdown for more than one and a half months now. The city of Srinagar remains under seize of the protestors.
Apart from Srinagar and Shopian, all of the towns in the valley remain burning with anger and continued protests. The streets of major towns in the Valley wear a deserted look. The family of victim women continues on hunger strike, till the culprits are caught.
The government and its authorities are delaying the matter as far as possible, awaiting the anger of the people to die down, to return to the normal course as before.
PDP and other opposition bourgeois parties, trying to derive petty political advantage out of the situation, are not able to answer the question that the same repression at the hands of the State and its armed forces had continued when they were in power.
This is not the first such case in Kashmir. There have been continuous complaints against the officials of armed forces deployed in Kashmir, from fake encounters of people to gang rapes and murder of women. The agencies like the Amnesty International have time and again published such gory incidents, which have become routine affair in Kashmir, where civilian rule has collapsed long before and which reels under the unrestricted and unbridled rule of armed forces. This yoke of the rule of armed forces has become unbearable for the people in Kashmir and hence such violent protests. The protests and the hand to hand fight by the people with the armed forces, shows that the people are losing the fear of death in the face of more dehumanising repression by the Indian State and its armed forces. The faith, however is lost long before.
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