Nazia Nazar
In July 2017, five army men including two officers were released on bail after their life terms were suspended by the Armed Forces Tribunal in the staged encounter in 2010 killing three young men in Jammu and Kashmir’s Macchil. In 2014, after thorough investigations the soldiers were found guilty of falsely claiming that the men were terrorists and killing them in cold blood for cash rewards and military honors. The three civilians – Shazad (27), Shafi Lone (19) and Riyaz Lone (20) of Nadihal village in Rafiabad were lured to work for army at Kalaroos in Kupwara where they were subsequently killed in a staged encounter during the intervening night of April 29 and 30, 2010 at Sona Pindi in Macchil sector on the Line of Control. The army had dubbed them as foreign militants who were killed in an encounter while trying to infiltrate the Line of Control.
The fake encounter was exposed by J&K police investigation after the families of the victims filed a missing report. Subsequently, when the bodies of these youth were exhumed from Macchil graveyard where they had been buried as unidentified Pakistani terrorists, the families identified them as the three missing men from Nadihal village in Rafiabad. This fake encounter had then triggered massive protests across Kashmir. The government had constituted a high-level inquiry commission while army too had ordered a high level probe. The interrogation of the four persons especially the two main kingpins Territorial Army jawan Abbas Hussein Shah and army source Hameed revealed that the officers of the 4 Rajputana battalion of the army were in a hurry to stage a fake encounter on the Line of Control to secure a unit citation and cash award days before they had to shift out of the valley.
Although this staged encounter was not the first such fake encounter in Kashmir where army, paramilitary or police men killed civilians and dubbed them as foreign militants, Macchil fake encounter probe exposed a complex narrative of counter-insurgency where greed and desire for brass medals became a common cause between a group of army officer and their local collaborators. On 12th November 2014, the Army had sentenced five of its personnel, including two officers, to life imprisonment for staging the killing of three Kashmiri civilians in the Macchil area of Kupwara district in 2010 and branding them as foreign militants for rewards and remunerations. Those sentenced by the Army’s summary general court martial were the then Commanding Officer of 4 Rajput regiment, Col. Dinesh Pathania, Captain Upendra Singh, havaldar Davender, lance naik Lakhmi and lance naik Arun Kumar. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had then welcomed the decision, calling it a “watershed moment.”
The then Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had said that the sentencing of five Army men in the Macchil fake encounter case, in which three Kashmiri civilians were killed and branded as foreign militants, should serve as a warning to those security personnel who may want to target innocent persons. He had tweeted: “No one in Kashmir ever believed that justice would be done in such cases. Faith in institutions had disappeared. I hope that we never ever see such Macchil fake encounter type of incidents again and let this serve as a warning to those tempted to try.” But award of life sentence in 2014 to the five army men proved a ruse and a drama, as the Armed Forces Tribunal has suspended their life terms and released on bail. The question arises when police enquiry and investigation by the army had found him guilty, on what grounds the sentence has been suspended?
After 14 years of Gujarat riots, a Special Investigation Team (SIT) court awarded life imprisonment to 11 of the 24 persons convicted in the Gulberg Society massacre of 69 people, including former Lok Sabha member of the Congress Ahsan Jafri in the violence. Twelve of the convicts were sent to jail for seven years and one was given 10-year imprisonment. It was indeed travesty of justice. Special Court Judge P.B. Desai in his remarks called the Gulberg massacre as the darkest day in the history of civil society; yet he rejected the demand for death sentence for all the convicts. It has to be mentioned that the prosecution had recommended that all the 24 convicts should be given the death penalty. There was another case of travesty of justice. In 2012, Zakia Jafri, the widow of former Congress MP Ahsan Jafri was not happy with the sentence. “This case is not over for me today. This is not justice,” said Mrs. Jafri.
The death penalty was awarded to 11 convicts; twenty others were sentenced to life imprisonment. Despite substantial evidence of state’s backing, in 2012 Narendra Modi was cleared of complicity in the violence by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) appointed by the Supreme Court of India. In July 2013, allegations were made that the SIT had suppressed evidence; yet in April 2014, the Supreme Court expressed satisfaction over the SIT’s investigations in nine cases related to the violence, and rejected as baseless a plea contesting the SIT report. This explodes the myth of judiciary’s independence in so-called largest democracy of the world. Since Narendra Modi’s coming to power, Hindu extremists have been on the rampage, and there have been reports of forced conversions of Muslims and Christians. Last year, they killed one Muslim alleging that he slaughtered cow, and there have been cases of killings and harassment to butchers.
