Two doctors dismissed in the 2009 Shopian deaths case: Recalling the incident which brought the Valley to a standstill

What was the 2009 Shopian death case?

On the evening of May 29, 2009, 19-year-old Asiya Jan and her 22-year-old sister-in-law, Neelofar Jan, left their home in Shopian district’s Bonagam village to visit local orchards but didn’t return. Their bodies were found a day later in the nearby Rambiara stream.

Although the state government initially said the two women had drowned in the stream and died, village residents rejected the claim, saying the water levels of the stream were “too low for drowning”. They instead accused security forces of raping and murdering the women and took to the streets in large numbers, prompting the then Chief Minister Omar Abdullah to set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the matter. However, an FIR in the case wasn’t registered.

Three days after the incident, Abdullah addressed a press conference in Srinagar, revealing that the SIT’s preliminary report suggests drowning as the cause of the women’s death. Despite the findings, the chief minister dissolved the SIT and announced a judicial inquiry by former High Court justice Muzaffar Ahmad Jan. But these steps didn’t wind down the protests in the region, which were mainly led by separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani and later joined by Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

As a result, an FIR regarding the incident was filed on June 7, 2009, and Shopian’s then Superintendent of Police (SP) Javid Iqbal Mattoo was transferred by the government. The situation, however, returned to normal when the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) report confirmed the presence of spermatozoa in the vaginal swab slides of the victims, encouraging the authorities to constitute another SIT, headed by SP Shahdin Malik, to further investigate the matter.

Meanwhile, Shopian residents formed an advisory committee, known as Majlis-e-Mushawarat, comprising civil society members, lawyers and businessmen, to spearhead the agitation.

On July 7, 2009, the retired Justice Jan Commission submitted its report. It accused the police of destruction of evidence but also pointed fingers at the character of the husband of one of the victims. The report was, however, rejected by Majlis-e-Mushawarat.
The government, on the other hand, acting on the report, suspended four police officers including SP Mattoo, who was earlier transferred, his deputy Rohit Baskotra, the then Station House Officer (SHO) Shafeeq Ahmad and the investigating officer Qazi Abdul Karim. Moreover, it also arraigned the suspended police officials as accused in the case. The J&K High Court later ordered the arrest of these policemen and asked authorities to put them through a narco-analysis test. It also directed the police to match the DNA profiles of the policemen with the deceased women to expedite the matter.

On July 22, the slides of the vaginal swabs, samples from victim bodies and blood samples taken from the four police officers were sent for DNA profiling to Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL). It was found that the vaginal swabs sent for tests are fabricated.

With the case heading nowhere, the Omar Abdullah-led government finally handed over the investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The CBI officials exhumed the bodies of Asiya and Neelofar and a team of doctors from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) took samples for medical examinations. In the meantime, the J&K High Court imposed a complete ban on the reporting of the CBI investigation.

On December 14, 2009, the CBI submitted its findings, which were rejected by the victims’ families and Majlis-e-Mushawarat, before the high court. The investigative agency ruled out rape and murder of the women and concluded that their death was caused by drowning.

The CBI also filed a chargesheet against 13 persons, including six doctors, five lawyers and two civilians. While the civilians included the brother of a victim, the doctors included both Dr Nighat Shaheen Chiloo and Dr Bilal Ahmad Dalal, who were terminated on Thursday by the government, under the controversial Article 311 (2) (C) of the constitution for “being a threat to the security of the state”, and the then Chief Medical Officer of Shopian Dr Ghulam Qadir. In 2014, militants shot at and injured Dr Qadit inside his clinic in Pulwama.