The valley146;s darkest night

On March 20, 2000, the Mattan police registered an FIR. After investigation, a challan was produced by the police before the chief judicial magistrate at Anantnag against 13 foreign militants. Only one among these 13 was arrested in Delhi. The rest have been declared 8216;8216;proclaimed offenders8217;8217;. The case has been declared closed. 8216;8216;This is an old case and the challan has been produced in the court,8217;8217; says Mohammad Aslam, SHO, Mattan.

INVESTIGATION into the case later took a curious turn. On March 24, 2000, then senior superintendent of police, Anantnag, Farooq Khan and the Army claimed that they managed a major breakthrough by killing five Lashkar-e-Toiba militants involved in the Chitti Singhpora massacre. The militants, they said, were killed in an encounter near Pathribal village near Chitti Singhpora. Their bodies were buried by the troops. In fact, then Union Home minister L K Advani, who visited Chitti Singhpora on March 25, 2000, too was given a detailed presentation by the Army and police officers on this successful operation. But villagers of Pathribal accused the troops of staging an encounter. Villagers suspected that the five 8216;8216;militants8217;8217; killed were civilians who were rounded up by the police and the Army and then killed to stage a speedy breakthrough in the massacre case.

On the complaint of the chowkidar of Pathribal, the police registered an FIR against the Army in April 2000. In the report, the village chowkidar alleged that soldiers abducted five innocent civilians from their villages and killed them in a fake encounter. The Army registered a counter FIR at the Achabal police station.

Seeing the public anger, the government ordered a high level probe and ordered exhumation of the bodies of the five 8216;militants8217;. When the police exhumed the bodies, relatives of the dead men identified them. In fact, two of the dead were elderly Gujjar tribal men from Brari Aangan village who had been picked up by the troops soon after the Chitti Singhpora massacre.

The state government ordered a high level probe in both the Chitti Singhpora and the Pathribal incidents.

As the government probe was in progress, the Pathribal case was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigations CBI. 8216;8216;The case is under CBI investigation. We don8217;t have any report on whether the CBI has come to any conclusion or not,8217;8217; said the station house officer at Achabal.

Six years after the Chitti Singhpora massacre and the following killing of five villagers in an 8216;encounter8217;, the probe has reached nowhere. However, relatives of the victims haven8217;t lost hope. 8216;8216;I lost my neighbors in the Chitti Singhpora massacre. But I still don8217;t know who is responsible for it,8217;8217; says Ashraf, a local singer from neighboring Achabal village.

The relatives of the five men called militants by the Army are also waiting for a verdict. 8216;8216;My cousin was killed after he was picked by the troops. I want those responsible for killing him to be punished,8217;8217; says Ahmad, a relative of Zahoor Dalal who was among the five men killed in the so called encounter.