The Pathribal faked encounter is a case of conspiracies and lose ends revealed by the investigators in the army’s and initial police narratives. It clearly points to pressure for quick results from some higher authorities in the aftermath of Chattisinghpora massacre. As the Supreme Court allowed the accused army officials to be tried within the army establishment, Kashmir Life traces how the facts were established.
It is a plot so thick with conspiracies that someday it might help script an Indian James Bond film. The then US president, the most powerful man on earth, lands in New Delhi and within a few hours of his touchdown, 36 Sikhs are massacred in south Kashmir’s Chittisinghpora hamlet during the night of March 20, 2000. It subdues jubilations across India, creates fears of another migration of another minority Kashmiri community. New Delhi mounts pressure on the vast security establishment in Kashmir to unveil the faces behind the butchery.
Kashmir’s all-powerful Special Operations Group (SOG) offers a “lead” within 12 hours of the massacre when it arrests a village youth, Mohammad Yaqub Wagay. After the “butcher’s arrest” is made public, five “terrorists – three of them Pakistani” – responsible for the massacre of Kashmiri Sikhs, are killed in an “encounter” atop Zonatengri, the hillock overlooking a vast Chatergul belt including Brarikhah, Panchalthan, Pathribal, Chowgam and many other hamlets.
On the eve of the encounter, Juma Fakirullah Khan and Juma Amirullah Khan went missing. A Pathribal cleric Molvi Qasim saw the slain “terrorists” and identified one of them as his brother-in-law. As public efforts for tracing the missing started, people from Hallan village and main Islamabad town joined them as two cattle traders and a hosiery seller had also gone missing mysteriously the same night.
A crisis builds up as thousands of people come out on streets who are fired upon by men of the SOG at Brakpora in the outskirts of Islamabad. On April 3, eight civilians are killed in the firing including the son of one of the missing Juma Khans. Under pressure, the bodies of the slain “terrorists” are exhumed, they turn out to be the five missing villagers as later identified by their relatives.
But it still requires scientific proof to establish their identities beyond doubt. Samples are taken from the exhumed bodies and the families of the five missing men which were sent for DNA matching to the reputed CDFD Hyderabad and CFSL Kolkata. It was discovered that the specimens were mixed. Finally, the teams from the forensic laboratories fly to South Kashmir and collect fresh samples after new exhumations and finally, the bodies are legally and medically identified to be who their relatives claimed them to be – the five missing villagers. As a commission is constituted to look into sample mixing fiasco, the government hands over the Pathribal massacre case to the CBI on February 14, 2003. The CBI filed a charge sheet before the CJM Srinagar after 39 months in May 2006. But what did the CBI find out?
The basic issue before the CBI was to identify who abducted the five victims – the two Juma Khans, Zahoor A Dalal of Islamabad and two cattle traders Bashir Ahmad Bhat and Mohammad Yuuf Malik of Hallan. There are no answers. Dalal came from his shop, had nun chai at home, moved out and disappeared. The two cattle sellers had a date with two of their clients in Sheerpora area of the town. After meeting one of their clients they told him that they would stay the night with the other. A day later their clients found out the duo had disappeared. The police during the course of investigations had seized (on April 19) a vehicle without registration number and keys but perfectly in order. Its owner could never be discovered, not even by the CBI.
But it was not just the case of the namesakes Juma Khans, one son of Amirullah and another one of Fakirullah. Mirza Noori, the widow of Juma Amirullah told the CBI that 10-12 persons broke open the window and door of her house and barged in. They took away her husband purportedly for showing them the way and did not permit her or their son Shakoor to accompany his father.
They were all dressed up in uniform and fully armed, Noori said. It was the same situation that Roshan Jan, the widow of Juma Fakrullah, a farmer and an occasional blacksmith, told the CBI. A group of 5-6 persons broke open the door of their house and barged in. His son Rashid, now a peon in PWD, appointed on compassionate grounds, told the CBI that they were soldiers who did not permit him to accompany his father during the night. Rahid’s brother Rafiq died in the firing at Bulbul Nowgam when he was part of a large procession seeking whereabouts of the two missing old men.
Five “militants” were reported killed the next morning. The CBI sees it as an army operation as Adjutant Major Amit Saxena of 7 Rashtriya Rifles informs the police station Achabal in black and white that they killed five “terrorists” responsible for the massacre of the 36 Kashmiri Sikhs. Later, names of three of the “Pakistanis” were conveyed to the police as well when their corpses were collected. The CBI asks how did the army know the three names. Accessing some of the internal communications of the army, the CBI says a recommendation had gone to the high ups for commendation to Colonel Ajay Saxena for the ‘successful operation’.
The army claimed that weapons were recovered from the “slain militants” – five AK 47 rifles, 12 magazines, two radio sets, two hand grenades besides some other things. The police received a seizure report on April 4, 2000. However, the recovered weapons were handed over to them three days later on August 7.
The CBI later found that two documents related to the weapons seizure did not match in detail. One talked about 5 AK 47s and the other mentioned one AK 47 and four AK 56s. The initial seizure report supposed to be drafted on the spot came belatedly typewritten. Interestingly, the two witnesses Farooq Gujar and Ayub Gujar refused they had signed the seizure memo as witnesses. Their signatures were obtained on blank papers by soldiers saying it (document) was to show that no loss was caused to them in the operation, they told the CBI.
The CBI has reported lack of cooperation from the armed forces, especially the officers who directly handled the ‘encounter’. However, RR has admitted that Col Saxena, Major B P Singh and Major Saurabh Sharma participated in the operation but the only soldier identified by the army for the police is Idrees Khan. Major Amit Saxena made the seizure memo. The RR informed the CBI that while Major BP Singh came rolling down the hillock, it was Major Saurab who went up the foothill. The investigating agency was also informed that given the suddenness of the encounter it was very difficult to remember particular soldiers who were part of the specific operation.
The CBI charge sheet, according to sources, is an elaborate document that quotes extensively the individuals who reached the spot soon after the firing ceased. After the ‘encounter’ was over, SSP Farooq Khan came with the RR Brigadier Deepak Bajaj. Later Major General R K Koushal also reached the spot, so did the media batteries, police photographers and others. All the senior officers talked to the media, terming the “joint operation” a success.
The hillock Zonatengri is home to around 15 kothas (ordinary wood and mud structure that herdsmen live in during summers). It appeared that only four of the militants were involved in the “encounter” – three bodies were traced in the kotha belonging to Ama Khan and another was in Farooq Khan Gujar’s kotha, not far away, without head, neck and one arm, according to CBI.
The fifth body was lying in the open, far away from the huts. Two bodies had army uniform over their civilian dresses. The CBI observed that huge quantity of ammunition was used against the civilians to create a false impression of an encounter, though no injury to any soldier was reported.
Inspector Mukesh Kumar, the man who arrested Yaqub Wagay of Chitisinghpora claimed he was part of the Sikh killers’ team and had driven to the spot as well after the “encounter” was over. He told the CBI that he compared the dead bodies with photographs and other particulars of the wanted militants he was carrying “but the dead bodies did not match with the photographs of wanted militants.”
A Crime Branch photographer who was deputed to record the event told the CBI that “compared to the badly burnt dead bodies on account of the fire, kothas were not burnt and damaged.” Further, he said, the arms and ammunition allegedly recovered from the five civilians were not burnt or damaged compared to the charring of the dead bodies.
Head Constable Abdul Majid who was officially supposed to investigate FIR 15/2000 of the encounter, told the CBI that three corpses were completely burnt, fourth was faceless and fifth was without the head.
“It was clearly visible that the dead bodies were first burnt and then placed into the kotha deliberately to show that the persons were killed in a genuine operation,” he was quoted saying. “There was no bullet hole on the combat dresses of the two dead bodies, though there were bullet injuries on the two dead bodies.”
Assistant Sub Inspector Bashir Ahmad, who headed Sherbagh SOG unit, told the CBI that the slain sustained 98 percent burn injuries in addition to the bullet injuries, indicating the use of excessive and unwarranted force. “It is impossible for the killed persons to have suffered such extensive burn injuries in a genuine encounter,” Bashir said. “The encounter was stage-managed with a view to obliterate the identity of the killed persons with an oblique motive.”
Bashir’s story is an interesting one and his deposition will eventually help any court to prove if the operation was carried out jointly by police and army or was it was a solo exercise, as it officially was, according to papers accessed by the CBI. There are two important developments that took place from police side which are claimed incorrect. Certain things on record are also being disputed and the CBI has acknowledged it completely.
A contested entry (departure No 10 dated March 24, 2000, at 8:15 pm) in the police records at Sherbagh police post that Bashir headed suggests that police participated in the operation and fired ammunition in self-defence. It shows that Bashir left with five of his subordinates to PCR on the directions of the SSP on a secret duty. But Bashir told the CBI that it was incorrect because he carried only four persons and drove directly to the Army camp Khundroo on the request of Commanding Officer Saxena which was received from a telephone of a nearby shop because police station line was not functioning. The team slept in the camp for the night and left early morning for the spot of the encounter in an army vehicle and reached the spot when the “encounter” was nearing its end.
The entry offers the details of the ammunition the team consumed in the “encounter”, all in self-defence. Bashir said neither of his team members fired even a single bullet. He claims that the entries in records were wrong including his signatures and the timing of his return from Pathribal. He has alleged that the entries in the register from No 64519 dated January 30, 2000, to No 64578 dated March 28, 2000, were “manipulated” after his transfer, allegedly on the instance of the new district police chief Munir Khan who replaced Farooq Khan. A year later in another session with the CBI, Bashir admits: “I had made an entry in the GD of the police post that I along with the party were going to police control room, which was not the correct entry.” The CBI investigator Ashok Kalra admitting that Bashir had requested CO 7RR “to include my name and name of my staff” in the encounter party because he thought “we may get out of turn promotions and medals.” His boss Farooq Khan clearly told the CBI that he had not deputed Bashir on secret duty. However, he had mentioned, all the police stations and posts in the district had “my express orders to attend to any call from the army for operation duties without wasting any time in seeking direction and permissions.”
As guns felt silent, local villagers reached the spot and failed in identifying any of the five. The police got Dr Bashir Ahmad Padar to examine the bodies. Since there was no suspicion about the authenticity of the “encounter”, the doctor felt no requirement for an autopsy. The bodies were transferred to the local police station. Two bodies each were taken by people of Saglan and Chogam for burial and one was taken to Wuzkhah. Though a cleric had already identified the two Juma Khans, the crisis erupted only after Yunis Khan, a local villager, recovered the I-card of one of them from the ‘encounter’ site.
The army indicates the input that militants were hiding at Zoonatengri came from the police but the police deny it. A secret communication that went to Victor Force headquarters at 0800 hours from Captain Puneet Dutta suggested that a CASO (cordon and search operation) was in progress on basis of the input that SOG had provided. It said that two columns of SOG were part of the operation.
But police say they were informed about the encounter when it was going on and the information of the clash had come from Brigadier Bajaj to SSP Khan. Details gathered by the CBI indicate that the inputs have emanated from Yaqub Wagay, the young man who was arrested by Mukesh Sharma within less than 12 hours after the massacre of 36 Sikhs. For a long time, the SOG maintained that Wagay accepted his guilt and informed sleuths about the killers. The theory was blasted by the executive police saying it was a forced confession. If Wagay is the source, then input has gone from SOG but an intelligent SOG had granted access to Brigadier Bajaj for interrogating Wagay on March 22. In conclusion, the CBI says the army had kidnapped the civilians well before they claimed they were informed by the police about the presence of militants at Panchalthan.
Interestingly, the police have already filed a charge-sheet in the Sikh massacre case accusing 18-20 militants, mostly Pakistanis, and the case is on trial in a court in Kathua. The charge-sheet was initially filed on November 13, 2000, before the CJM Srinagar but was later shifted out.
Abdul Rehman Sheikh, DySP was the first investigator of the Pathribal fake encounter. On March 29, CJM Islamabad asked him to investigate the case on the basis of a petition. On April 11, he submitted the final report of the entire fake action. It was Rehman’s investigation that led to the exhumations of the five charred bodies over two days starting April 6. Owing to public pressure, the investigations were swift and impressive in the beginning. It got hold of an eyewitness who revealed almost everything. Hidayat Shah witnessed soldiers carrying white plastic cans with some ‘oily substance’ towards the hillock. The investigator on April 14 took a “basket full of used cartridges” and half-burnt clothes received from Kothas and strewn burnt flesh of the victims.
A relative identified bodies from peculiar identification marks. One Juma Khan with his arms and face intact, and the lower portion burnt and bore bullet marks, was identified by a cyst on his head and a ring on his finger beside his henna-dyed beard.
At its level, the CBI tried to seek answers but failed. The only thing it got was that the doctors led by Balbir Kour got body samples over two days. They would reach Srinagar late and instead of shifting the samples to a safer place, they would keep them in the boot of their official car left parked in a garage locked from outside. Interestingly, the keys of the car and the garage would remain with Dr Kour.
The CBI investigations have held army completely responsible in the five Pathribal murders. It knows many things including how the army was under “tremendous psychological pressure” from high-ups to show results and how some unknown officers visited lawyer Munir-ud-Din Shawl and offered him one crore rupees for distribution among the families of the victims. But it has not offered any answer to how the samples were mixed and where? Unravelling this mystery would have helped directly pinpoint everyone involved in the conspiracy before and after the crime. The DNA sampling, after all, was an issue that was handled by civilian authorities, far away from the garrisons.
