Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Mar 31: A court today heard an application for the opening of a criminal trial against Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) leader, Farooq Ahmed Dar alias Bitta Karate in the murder of Kashmiri Pandit businessman Satish Tickoo in 1990, and listed the matter for further hearing on May 4.
Advocate Utsav Bains, of Tickoo’s family, said here that they hope that they will get justice from the court.
He said that the video of Karate confessing to killing Tickoo will be submitted in the court in the course of arguments.
“We will do it in the due course of the arguments because in that video Karate says that he killed Tickoo because he was a member of the RSS. It is a submission of a cognizable offence,” he said.
The other side argued that a PIL by the NGO Roots in Kashmir seeking orders for investigation into cases of killings of Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley was dismissed by the Supreme Court and the application is not maintainable.
However, Bains argued that under the criminal law, the family had a right to take the other side for a criminal trial.
“The family of Tickoo did not go to the SC. We have not even filed an affidavit in the SC in the Roots in Kashmir petition. So, my right to criminal trial does not get affected by that PIL and the dismissal order,” he said.
“My right in a criminal law, in a cognizable offence, still remains. We all know that the situation has improved in Kashmir, and the family after 31 years, wants justice and closure in this case. So, we are making all efforts under the criminal law, under the CrPC, to get Bitta Karate on the trial…,” Bains said.
In June 1990, Karate was arrested under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act and was in jail till 2006, after which he was released on indefinite bail. He was arrested again in 2019 by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on charges of terror funding.
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