Srinagar: The army on Wednesday objected to issuance of certified copies to state police saying that the IGP Kashmir is not a party in the Pathribal ‘Fake’ encounter case so he cannot obtain a copy of the related documents.
In its objections, the army also pleaded that the application of the IGP Kashmir seeking duplicate copies of the military court verdict against five accused in the matter be dismissed as the same is beyond his jurisdiction. Pertinently, the IGP Kashmir had filed an application seeking certified copies of the military court verdict in the matter so that the state government could have agitated the matter at an appropriate forum.
Eight years after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) charged five Army men, including four officers and a Junior Commissioned Officer, with murder of five civilians in Pathribal area of south Kashmir’s Anantnag district, in January this year Army closed the case “because the evidence recorded couldn’t establish a prime-facie case against any of the accused.”
The Army had taken up the case from the Civil Court in 2012 following the Supreme Court directions while it has earlier challenged the charge-sheet filed by the CBI, which described the killings as a cold-blooded murder. Brigadier Ajay Saxena, Lt Col Brajendra Pratap Singh, Major Sourabh Sharma, Major Amit Saxena and Subedar Idrees Khan were charge-sheeted by the CBI in 2006 for killing five civilians and later dubbing them as foreign militants.
Five civilians were killed and branded as militants, days after 35 Sikhs were killed in Chattisingpora village, nearer to Pathribal. The CBI had filed the charge-sheet against the accused army officers in 2006 but the Army contested its maintainability on the grounds that prior sanction from the Government of India was required under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), which provides immunity against prosecution to Army personnel deployed in ‘disturbed’ areas. (KNS)