by Shakir Ashraf
SRINAGAR: The Jammu and Kashmir Police’s charge sheet in the Amshipora, Shopian “fake” encounter has brought to the fore how an army Captain Bhupinder Singh hatched the conspiracy to kill three young men while keeping his senior in the dark.
The chargesheet states that no police report was taken before establishing contact with the alleged militants at the site of the encounter while the accused officer did not inform his seniors “till the last moment of design.”
As per the charge sheet, Captain Singh along with two civilians, Tabish Nazir Malik and Bilal Lone staged the encounter while tampering with evidence.
The charge sheet also mentions that the trio “purposefully” projected fake information as the part of “criminal conspiracy” with the purpose of grabbing Rs 20 lakh as prize money.
Tabish Nazir Malik, 22, is the son of Nazir Ahmad Malik who recently contested the Urban Local Bodies election on a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ticket from Kanipora area of south Kashmir’s Shopian district.
Bilal Lone another youth hails from neighbouring Nikas village of south Kashmir’s Pulwama district.
While the two civilians have been arrested in September 2020, the army captain is yet to be arrested by the police for procedures under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act and the Army Act.
The army captain along with the two other conspirators has been accused of abducting the three men from their rented accommodation in Amshipora, Shopian where they had come to work as labourers from Rajouri.
“The three men were abducted from their rented rooms on 17 July evening and taken to Amshipora where they were killed at a storehouse in an orchard in the petite hours of 18 July and were labelled as foreign terrorists,” the charge sheet reads.
According to the charge sheet, the accused Captain Singh hatched a conspiracy to kill Abrar Ahmad, a 12th standard student along with his brother in law Abrar Khan and their 19-year-old cousin Imtiyaz Ahmad.
Police charge sheet mentions that Captain Singh along with his two associates hired a local cab in which they abducted the three youngsters.
The accused army official and two other civilians have been booked under sections 302 (murder); 364 (abduction); 201 (causing disappearances of evidence and giving false information); 436 (mischief by fire or explosive substance with intent to destroy house etc); 120 (criminal conspiracy); 182 (the following information with the intent to cause public servant to use his lawful power to the injure another person).
