J&K orders probe into 30 encounters in 2014

“If anyone from the security forces is being recommended for a gallantry award, the encounter has to be probed by the DM”

The Jammu and Kashmir government has ordered magisterial probes into 30 gun battles that took place in the State last year following a directive from the Ministry of Home Affairs that several encounters for which policemen were recommended for gallantry awards had not been probed.

“According to the National Human Rights Commission guidelines, if anyone from the security forces is being recommended for a gallantry award, the encounter has to be probed by the district magistrate,” a senior official from J&K administration told The Hindu . “In fact, any gun battle in which someone is killed must be probed, but that does not usually happen here.”

Deputy Commissioner, Kupwara, Rajeev Kumar, who called for a probe into a 2014 encounter in Lolab, where seven alleged militants were killed in a gun battle with the police, told

The Hindu , “They (NHRC) asked if the gun battle had been probed since the policemen had been nominated for gallantry awards. We found out that no probe had been conducted into the encounter and so we ordered one.”

A day after the Lolab encounter, the residents of the area had staged a massive protest alleging the encounter to be “fake”. They had demanded the bodies of the men killed in the gun battle and a probe into the killings.

Several senior officials believe that the probes being ordered now are a mere “formality”.

“I received a letter from the SP, Sopore, asking me to conduct a probe into a case that I don’t even remember now. It is more than a year-and-a-half-old, or even older. At the time when the gun battle happens, the police refuse to share any information with us and now we are being asked to conduct the probes. What can I probe after so long,” said Deputy Commissioner, Baramulla, Mushtaq Ahmad Shah.

Mr. Shah said the role of the deputy commissioner/district magistrate in law enforcement has been reduced to slapping Public Safety Act against people and conducting “belated probes” that served no purpose.

According to Coalition of Civil Society, a human rights organisation, the State government has ordered more than 170 probes in various killings since 2002, but none of them have led to any punishments.

“The purpose of these probes is not to arrive at justice but to say that the encounter was a 'genuine one' so that the policemen can get a gallantry award. The outcome of these probes does not lead to filing of criminal charges against the police if the encounter is found to be a staged one. The authorities are only doing it to save themselves from embarrassment in future,” said Khurram Parvez of the CCS.

“In 2012, the J&K High Court had ordered an inquiry by the CBI into an incident known as 'Sailaan massacre'. According to the police, it was an encounter but the SHRC inquiry had proved that it was a cold-blooded massacre in which 21 civilians were killed. For three years now, the CBI has neither concluded the investigation, nor provided any public disclosure about the status of the investigation,” Mr. Parvez said.

Several officials believe that the probes being ordered now are a mere “formality”

“The authorities are doing it to save themselves from embarrassment in future”