SRINAGAR: Preliminary investigations conducted by the army’s Court of Inquiry, as well as the J&K police, have found that Captain Bhoopendra Singh of 62 RR regiment, aided by two civilian informers, had “staged” the July 8 encounter in Kashmir’s Amshipora and “killed” three daily wage labourers working in apple orchards, allegedly to claim a cash bounty of Rs 20 lakh granted by the army as reward for killing terrorists.
The informers Tabish Nazir, a resident of Shopian, and Bilal Ahmad, who lives in Pulwama, were paid a “few thousand” rupees, states the 300 page chargesheet filrd by the J&K police’s special investigation team (SIT).
While the army is currently conducting court-martial proceedings against Bhoopendra Singh, as well as an unnamed non-commissioned officer, the SIT filed its chargesheet before the Shopian principal district and sessions judge Sikander Azam against two civilian informers on December 28. The chargesheet mentions that Singh, along with the two civilian informers, had “planned” and “organized” the encounter of the three youths, concealed their identities, planted weapons on them, and then alleged they were terrorists.
The chargesheet also states that four personnel in Singh’s team — subedar Garu Ram, lance nayek Ravi Kumar and sepoys Ashwini Kumar and Yougesh — had deposed before the SIT that they left their camp along with two informers to carry out the encounter but as they were laying a cordon, they heard firing of gunshots. Later, Singh had justified that he was forced to open fire when the “terrorists” were trying to escape, it adds. The chargesheet even notes that Singh used a different name, ‘Major Basheer Khan’, while planning and committing the crime.
The SIT filed its chargesheet after talking to 75 persons and corroborating call records of the accused persons.
While the army initially said the three were “terrorists”, it later admitted that its men exceeded the powers vested under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and contravened the dos and don’ts of the chief of army staff (COAS) as approved by the Supreme Court. The army had ordered a court of inquiry into the encounter.
On July 18 last year, three labourers were killed in an “encounter” at Amshipora, in Shopian ditrict; their pictures went viral on social media. The families of the three, living in Jammu’s Rajouri district, claimed their wards were innocent and had gone to Shopian to work in apple orchards. The three youths are: Abrar Ahmed, 25; Imtiyaz Ahmed, 20, and Mohammed Ibrar, 16.
Prodded by netizens and civil society activists, the families demanded DNA mapping of slain trio. The police conducted the mapping process in which the DNA samples of the three matched with that of their families. On October 3, after around 70 days, the bodies of three labourers were exhumed.
The bodies were later handed over to the families who had to go to Kashmir to collect them. They were buried at their native places.