Army initiates court-martial against Captain in 2020 Amshipora fake encounter
The police chargesheet in the fake gunfight had also accused Captain Bhoopendra Singh alias Major Basheer Khan of abduction and the murder of the three Rajouri men.
3 min read
On October 3, 2020, the J-K government exhumed the bodies of the three labourers and handed them over to their families.(Representational)A year and a half after three labourers from Jammu’s Rajouri were killed by the Indian Army in a staged gun battle in South Kashmir, the force has initiated court-martial against one of its officers.
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The army has initiated a general court-martial against Captain Bhoopendra Singh of the 62 Rashtriya Rifles that conducted the staged gunfight in South Kashmir’s Amshipora village in Shopian saying three militants were killed in the exchange of fire.
“The Army has initiated general court-martial proceedings against a Captain in Op Amshipura, Shopian in south Kashmir in July 2020 after the Court of Inquiry and the Summary of Evidence indicated a need for disciplinary proceedings,” said the defence spokesman in a brief statement. “Indian Army is committed to ethical conduct of operations. Further updates on the case will be shared in a manner so as not to prejudice due process of law,” added the spokesman.
The police chargesheet in the fake gunfight had also accused Captain Bhoopendra Singh alias Major Basheer Khan of abduction and the murder of the three Rajouri men. The police chargesheet had further mentioned that the weapon of the offence of the Captain has been recovered by police.
On July 18, 2020, three labourers from Rajouri in Jammu—Imtiyaz Ahmad,20, and Mohammad Abrar, 16, residents of the Dharsakri village, and Abrar Ahmad, 25, from the Tarkasi village of Kotranka in Rajouri—were killed in a staged encounter in the Amshipora village. The army and police had dubbed the three labourers as unidentified militants and buried them discreetly in a graveyard in North Kashmir.
The cover over the operation was blown on August 10, 2020, when the pictures of the bodies of the three labourers were leaked on social media, a day after their families had filed a missing report with the police saying their sons, who had gone to Kashmir for work, went missing since the night of July 17, 2020. As soon as the pictures went viral on social media, the families identified the men forcing the army to order a probe into the killings.
On September 18, 2020, the army’s court of inquiry confirmed that the three men killed in the Amshipora village staged gunfight were actually labourers from Rajouri. Their identity was further confirmed by the DNA test results. The Summary of Evidence conducted by the army had found Captain Singh culpable in the killings.
On October 3, 2020, the J-K government exhumed the bodies of the three labourers and handed them over to their families.
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