Shopian case; Court orders exhumation of bodies of two women

Srinagar, July 4 (PTI) High Court of India's northern
state Jammu and Kashmir today directed exhumation of the
bodies of two women allegedly raped and murdered in Shopian
last month to collect their DNA samples subject to the consent
of their family.

Noting that the DNA report is missing and post-mortem
was done in a proper way, a division bench of the high court
comprising Chief Justice Barin Gosh and Justice Mohammad Yaqub
Mir ordered exhumation of the bodies of Asiya and Nelofar.

Justice Gosh directed the principal of medical college
Srinagar to set up a team of doctors to perform the tests.

"This is a sensational matter. Every man on the
street, irrespective of caste or creed, is praying for the
culprits to be caught," he observed. The case has sparked
massive protests in the Kashmir Valley.

The court appointed inspector general of police (CID)
Farooq Ahmad as special officer inquiry and DIG Rouf-ul-Hassan
as his deputy to monitor the proceedings of the special
investigation team (SIT) inquiring into the case.

Ahmad is at present carrying out an internal
departmental probe into alleged negligence of duty by four
suspended police officials including the former SP, Shopian.

The court also directed the SIT headed by SP Shah Din
Malik to interrogate and carry out narco-analysis test of four
suspended police officials and two witnesses. It asked the
SIT to submit its progress report every week to the Court.
The orders were passed by the court after hearing the
arguments of Kashmir High Court Bar Association (KHCBA) which
had filed a PIL on the Shopian incident.

The two victims aged 22 and 17 were found dead on May
29 in Shopian triggering a wave of protests across the Kashmir
valley which also saw strikes called by separatists over the
issue.

The court directed the Advocate General to request the
Government to hand over the charge of the departmental
inquiry against the police officials to some other officer as
the court wanted to appoint Ahmad as the head of the SIT
probing the Shopian case.

Ahmad was appointed as the officer to inquire into the
alleged lapses by then SP, Shopian, Javid Iqbal Mattoo and his
deputy Rohit Baskotra in handling the Shopian case after the
Justice Muzaffar Jan Commission indicted them in his interim
report.

The Court directed that IG CRPF and CBI forensic
laboratory be made party to the PIL filed by the Kashmir Bar
Association.

The bench wanted the laboratory to expedite the report
of the DNA test.A vaginal swab of the victims, based on which
the state FSL had confirmed rape, has been sent to the CBI
laboratory.

It asked the Bar Association to convince the family of
the victims for extraction of their hair strands so that these
could be matched through DNA testing with the strands found by
the SIT during its investigation.

While directing the state to prepare a list of all
the people including police and CRPF who were present around
the spot from where the bodies of the victims were recovered,
it left it to the SIT to decide the radius of the area to be
brought under this investigation.PTI