DNA of 3 killed in Shopian encounter match with families: Kashmir Police chief

By NAZIR GANAIE

Sep 25, 2020

Srinagar: Inspector General of Police (IGP), Kashmir, Vijay Kumar on Friday said that the results of the DNA samples of the family members have matched with three persons killed in an encounter in south Kashmir’s district Shopian on July 18.

The police had taken samples from the families of the three missing youth on August 13 to match them with the samples of three persons killed by the Army. The encounter had taken place in Shopian’s Amshipora area.

Addressing a press conference in Srinagar, Kumar said further investigations were going on in this case.

“We have received the DNA sample results of three families of Rajouri and they have matched with those killed in Amshipora Shopian,” he said.

Imtiyaz Ahmad, Abrar Ahmad, and Mohammad Ibrar from Rajouri district were killed by the forces during the operation.

An army inquiry later found that the security personnel had exceeded their powers under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) into their encounter killing.

The Jammu and Kashmir Police and the army started probing the killing of the trio after families from Rajouri claimed that their kin had gone missing and photographs emerged on social media about them reportedly having been killed in the encounter.

Family members of three labourers from Rajouri in Jammu who went missing in the Shopian district of Kashmir last month have alleged, on the basis of photographs, that the three unidentified militants the army said it killed in a gunfight there on July 18, were in fact their innocent relatives.

The allegations, if true, will evoke painful memories of the Pathribal incident of March 2000 in which five civilians from Anantnag were killed by the security forces and passed off as ‘terrorists’, and, more recently the Machil encounter of 2010 in which three civilians were killed.

It may be recalled, on 25th March, 2000, personnel of the 7 Rasthriya Rifles (7RR) carried out an operation to take down five “foreign militants” in the forests of Pathribal in Anantnag, Jammu and Kashmir. The army claimed the slain men were responsible for shooting 36 Sikh men five days before, on 20th March, 2000, in the incident now known as Chittisinghpora massacre.

It later emerged that the five men were actually residents of villages around Pathribal, who had gone missing a couple of days before the encounter. When civilians came out on the streets to protest the extrajudicial killings, they were met by open firing by personnel from the CRPF and SOF in Brakpora, with another eight people losing their lives. In all, 49 civilians were killed in a matter of 15 days.

–INDIA NEWS STREAM