Probe for probe’s sake

The fact remains that the then deputy commissioner, Baramulla, Atul Dullo who constituted this single-member-inquiry commission sat on the probe during his tenure in Baramulla and now his successors as well as the people have forgotten the probe. Thus the inquiry did serve its purpose it pacified the villagers and also helped the Government to tide over the immediate crisis.

In another similar incident, On June, 28, 1999, unidentified gunmen wearing army uniform shot dead 17 members of three families in a Surankote village in Poonch district. The deceased, who included three women and nine children, were family members of two top Hizbul Mujahideen militant commanders, Kousar Mehmood and Khalil Khan. Though the immediate official version was that the massacre was conducted by militants attributing it to the group rivalry within their outfit, the locals pointed fingers towards the security forces.

To ascertain the truth, a magisterial inquiry was ordered by Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah himself. In fact, Abdullah along with Governor G.C. Saxena had visited the massacre site and assured the villagers that the culprits will not be spared at any cost. The probe did its magic and the people calmed down with a hope that this inquiry will identify the perpetrators of this gruesome massacre and punish them.

On March, 6, 2000, the Chief Minister while responding to a question by one of his own party legislators, admitted that some agencies were involved in the massacre. And when the MLA asked Abdullah to identify the agencies whose hand in the massacre was established, the Chief Minister stated that it would not be in the national interest to name those agencies in public because they are fighting the militants.

In yet another case, on November, 7, 1999 a couple was killed allegedly by the Border Security Force personnel, who had retaliated taking a Diwali cracker to be a militant attack. The deceased Mohammad Ashraf Bazaz, a manager in the J&K Bank, was taking his wife, who was in her last stage of pregnancy, to the hospital in a autorickshaw when a light machine gun burst hit both of them in their heads, killing them.

The whole state administration was shocked by this incident. The J&K Bank was closed as the employees were protesting the killing of their colleague. The Government immediately ordered a magisterial probe to ascertain the truth. The deputy commissioner, Srinagar was asked to conduct the inquiry and submit report within a month. But after four months of the incident, the killers are yet to be identified. The divisional commissioner, Kashmir Khursheed Ahmad Ganai when asked about the outcome of this probe, said the former deputy commissioner of Srinagar, who was entrusted with the inquiry has not submitted the report as yet.

Commenting on this trend, a retired police officer said that if some Government agency is involved, the delay in the conclusion of official probes is always deliberate. “There are no doubts about the identity of the perpetrators of such crimes. In fact, the Government never has the intention to expose those involved and take action against them as the false apprehensions of jeopardising the national interest loom large,” he said.

“In fact, there is a strong lobby in the State administration and the police, who shield killers in the name of national interest,” he said. “But they don’t understand those who violate their own law and the constitution can never implement it on others. There is no justification to any crime in the name of patriotism.”

Another senior IAS officer, posted in J&K goes a step further. He said: “It is an irony that if a constable or an officer of the rank of a company commander commits a mistake, the entire establishment has to defend him. If we enforce accountability and punish the people responsible, how will this jeopardise national interest? Why should we shield criminal elements within our system, whose activities always alienate the common people?” he said.

It is a fact that the Government is reluctant to reveal the truth in most of the cases, where the police or the security forces personnel have committed excesses. Take the case of the recent firing on the demonstrators at Brakpora in Anantnag district in which seven villagers were killed and dozens other wounded. There was no doubt that the Assistant Sub-Inspector, Ashok Kumar of the SOG lost his cool because the demonstrators were making provocative slogans. He started indiscriminate firing into the crowd, which was followed by the firing of the CRPF sentries. But when the Police issued a press release regarding the incident, they claimed that there were terrorists hiding in the crowd, who fired towards the police post and the demonstrators died in cross-fire.

However, when the Chief minister refused to read the police statement regarding this incident in the Assembly calling it baseless, the police top brass not only suspended the police personnel responsible for the shootout but also arrested them. How would punishing a few police personnel, responsible for killing of so many demonstrators jeopardise the national interest? The question comes up again and again in Kashmir, where deaths have become an order of the day and human lives have lost their value.