Five people were booked for the J&K fake encounter case in Jammu and Kashmir including an army major and aterritorial army soldier, police said on Saturday.
The incident took place on April 30 when 4 Rajputana Rifles of Army claimed to have shot dead three militants who were attempting to enter into the Valley from across the border. However, the claim of the Army was contested by the family members of Muhammad Shafi, Shehzad Ahmed and Riyaz Ahmed who were shot dead said they were not militants. The police had registered a missing report on April 27 in this regard which was later converted into a kidnapping case.
Police told that they have arrested Abbas Hussain Shah, a jawan of the territorial army, who is the kingpin of the conspiracy, on Saturday. Two others, Basharat Lone and Abdul Hamid Bhat were also arrested for the incident.
“Sustained interrogationof Bhat and Lone unraveled the entire conspiracy. Abbas Hussain Shah, a jawan of the territorial army, is the kingpin of this nefarious conspiracy,” a senior police officer said.
“He, on the behest of an Army officer (major), conspired with Lone, Ahmad and Abdul Hamid Bhat to lure the three civilians. They were promised a wage of Rs 2,000 per day if they work as porters for the Army in the Machil sector of the Line of Control (LOC) where the unit of the involved major was posted. After they fell into Hussain’s trap, the three civilians were taken to Sogam village in Kupwara where a vehicle was waiting for them to be taken to the LOC for the fake gun battle,” he said.
Police sources said that they were suspicious of the genuineness of the LOC gunfight in Machil sector on April 30 when the bodies of three slain people were handed over to them for burial. ”All the three had bullet wounds in their heads which is highly unlikely in a gunfight between the security forces and the militants. All of them were dressed in summer clothes which is not possible for militants crossing the snowbound LOC where the gunfight was claimed to have occurred,” the police officer said.
In the presence of a magistrate, the bodies of the three civilians — Shahzad Ahmad Khan, Riyaz Ahmad Lone and Muhammad Shafi Lone — were exhumed on Friday from a graveyard in Kalaroos village of Kupwara district and identified by their relatives.
Meanwhile, an angry mob torched the house of Lone in Nadihal village, the SPO who is one of the conspirators in the murder of the three civilians.
[Source: Peace Times]
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