NEW DELHI: The controversial decision of the Army to close alleged the “fake” encounter case of Pathribal was raised in the Lok Sabha today with ruling National Conference demanding reopening of the case and punishing the guilty.
Raising the matter during Zero Hour, National Conference Parliament Member from South Kashmir Mehboob Beg said the decision of the Army had “shattered” the hopes of Kashmiri people and the same should be addressed by reopening the case.
The MP, in whose constituency Pathribal area falls, wondered how it is possible that the same set of people is found guilty by CBI, the country’s premier probe agency, and Army claims there was no evidence.
“CBI had initiated a case to probe the veracity of the encounter and it found that the five killed were unarmed civilians. Army claimed they were terrorits but they were just unarmed civilians, a fact established by CBI…
“…The case should be reopened to punish the guilty,” Beg said.
The army had last month announced that it was closing the Pathribal case against its five personnel due to “lack of evidence”. The incident had taken place on March 25, 2000.
The five personnel — the then Brigadier Ajay Saxena, Lt Col Brajendra Pratap Singh, Major Sourabh Sharma, Major Amit Saxena and Subedar Idrees Khan — were chargesheeted by CBI which alleged the Pathribal encounter was a “cold-blooded murder”.
Chief minister Omar Abdullah, state’s political parties and general public reacted sharply to army’s decision and have been demanding reconsideration of closure of the case. Omar had taken up the matter with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during his recent visit to Jammu.
Beg said if the case is not brought to a reasonable conclusion, then the confidence of the people of Kashmir would be shattered.
Army was forced to initiate court martial proceedings against its men after the Supreme Court directed it do so in May 2012.
On January 23 this year, the army decided to close the case against its men and submitted a report to the Chief Judicial Magistrate in Srinagar claiming there was no evidence against the then Brigadier. (AGENCIES)
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