Srinagar: An army court has handed a life sentence to the captain who was involved in the Amshipora fake encounter, in which three youngsters from Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri district “were murdered” in a staged gun battle on July 18, 2020 and passed off as militants.
The court has held that Captain Bhoopendra Singh, of the Army’s 62 Rashtriya Rifles then based in South Kashmir’s Shopian district, “exceeded powers vested under the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act” during the encounter which took place more than a year after J&K was reduced to a union territory.
The life sentence handed to Captain Singh is “subject to confirmation by higher army authorities, and the process involved in such matters is still on, according to army sources”, reported PTI.
Speaking over the phone from his residence in Rajouri district, Mohammad Yusuf, the father of Abrar Ahmad, 25, one of the three victims of the fake encounter, said that he was happy with the sentence. “The blood of three innocents was spilled that day. The army tried to project them as militants but the truth has finally prevailed,” he said.
The other two victims killed in the staged gun battle were identified as Imtiyaz Ahmad, 19, and Mohammad Ibrar, 16, both Class 12 students. Sabir Hussain, Imtiyaz’s father, said that he worked as a labourer to provide education to his son with the hope that he will take care of the family in coming years.
“My elder son is illiterate. With Imtiyaz’s death, I have lost everything. But the news (of the life sentence to the army captain) has come as a relief. Since his murder, I had lost my sleep. Now my heart will finally rest a little,” he said.
A probe conducted by the J&K Police and army had already held three persons, including two civilians – Tabish Nazir Malik, a resident of Shopian and an army informer, and Bilal Lone, who lives in Pulwama and has turned approver in the case – responsible for hatching a conspiracy to kill the three cousins who belong to poor families in Rajouri’s Tarkassi village.
According to the chargesheet filed by the J&K Police, the army captain and two civilians “committed offences under Sections 302 (murder), 364 (abduction), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence and giving false information), 436 (mischief by fire or explosive substance with intent to destroy house etc), 120 (criminal conspiracy), 182( false information, with intent to cause public servant to use his lawful power to the injury of another person) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 7/25 of the Arms Act (possession of prohibited weapons)”.
Investigation into the case by the J&K Police’s Special Investigation Team, led by deputy superintendent of police Wajahat Hussain, found that the victims had walked on foot all the way from Rajouri to Shopian looking for work at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when they went missing after renting a room in Shopian’s Chowgam village.
In its 1,400-page chargesheet, the J&K Police blamed the army captain, Tabish, whose father unsuccessfully contested urban local bodies elections on a BJP ticket, and Bilal of abducting the trio from their rented accommodation on the evening of July 17, 2020.
The chargesheet states that the victims were taken to Amshipora and killed in a makeshift building in an orchard in the wee hours of 18 July, 2020, for monetary benefits.
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