Excelsior Correspondent
SRINAGAR, Aug 18 : Army today said that a high level Court of Inquiry is under way into the alleged stage managed encounter of July 18 that took place at Amshipora in Shopian district last month, and the statements of key witnesses are being recorded.
Army had claimed that they killed three unidentified militants in the encounter whose pictures went viral on social media after their families from Rajouri district claimed that slain were not militants but their wards, who had gone to Shopian to work as laborers to earn a living. On August 11, the Army had stated that it had taken note of the social media reports where netizens had termed the encounter as a fake and maintained that “investigation into the matter was ordered.”
Srinagar based Defence spokesman Colonel Rajesh Kalia today said that as intimated on August 11, a high level Court of Inquiry into the operation Amshipora, Shopian is under process.
“Statements of key witnesses are being recorded and progress is being monitored closely. Additional civil witnesses are being asked to depose before the CoI. Concurrently, DNA samples have been collected from Rajouri under the aegis of Jammu and Kashmir Police and sent for matching with the militants killed on July 18, 2020,” Colonel Kalia said.
He said that the army is committed to ethical conduct of all the Counter militancy operations. “Cases where doubts are raised are investigated under due process as per the law of the land. Since the case is under investigation, further details will be shared periodically, as appropriate without affecting due legal process,” he said.
It may be mentioned here that a special team from Jammu and Kashmir Police had visited Rajouri recently and collected the samples of families of the slain. The samples were sent to Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) for cross matching the reports of which are expected by September 5.
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