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Journalism of Courage
SRINAGAR, NOV 18: Controversy continues to stalk the March 20 Chittisinghpora massacreinto which the state government recently ordered a probewith the case against a prime suspect virtually falling apart.
Mohammad Yaqoob Wagay, a local shopkeeper, was picked up a few days after the massacre by the police for allegedly “guiding” the killers to the village. Union Home Secretary Kamal Pande announced his arrest in New Delhi and the Army claimed that based on Wagay’s “leads,” it had killed five militants.
Nine months later, Anantnag Senior Superintendent of Police Muneer Khan admits that the police have no corroborative evidence to chargesheet him. And that they have reduced the charge from multiple murder to “trying to breach the peace.” (CrPC 107/151).
Speaking to The Indian Express after he was bailed out recently, Wagay said the statement that he guided the Chittisinghpora killers was extracted under severe torture.
“I am innocent. I know nothing. They (police) tortured me for 18 days at the STF camp where they forced me to admit that I was accompanying the militants who killed the Sikhs,” he stated.
Incidentally, after the massacre, Union Home Secretary Kamal Pandey had announced at a press conference that the J&K Police had arrested Mohammad Wagay, a local militant.
Wagay reportedly told the police during his interrogation that the carnage was perpetrated by a joint group of terrorists belonging to the Lashkar-e-Toiba and the Hizbul.
Wagay, however, said he was talking with local youths outside the house of his uncle Mohammad Ramzan when they heard the firing. “We thought children were bursting crackers since it was Holi. But when we thought it could be firing, I got into my uncle’s house”. Wagay said two of the youths who were with him are in the security forces and another is a Sikh. “I pleaded with the police to get these men and confirm where I was at the time of the massacre. But they were least interested.”
The case against Wagay, a 28-year-old milkman who also ran a medicine shop in the village, was registered in the Anantnag Police Station.
Later, the then SSP, Anantnag, Farooq Khan claimed that five foreign militants responsible for Chittisinghpora were killed in a joint Army-police operation at Panchalthan (Pathribal) on Wagay’s leads.
After the police failed to produce a challan within 60 days of Wagay’s arrest, the court released him on bail. However, he was re-arrested in connection with a case registered by Rashtriya Rifles in Achalbal police Station claiming that Wagay led a joint RR-Police party to a militant hideout at Panchalthan, leading to an encounter in which five militants got killed. “Again there was no evidence found against him, so he was again released on bail. But we took him in custody again because we apprehended breach of peace by his release,” Khan said.
Wagay was released on November, 9 but was lodged in Anantnag Police Station only to be moved back to Central Jail, Srinagar on Wednesday.
