It was on the evening of 20 March 2003, when Indian paramilitary forces in the guise of local freedom fighters entered the village of Chattisinghpora, a Sikh dominated small hamlet located in south Kashmir’s district Islamabad. The attackers ordered all of the Sikh men and boys to assemble at the village Gurdwara (Temple), and systematically shot and killed 35 of them whereas so many members of the community sustained injuries in the attack. The massacre, which took place on the eve of U.S. President Bill Clinton’s visit to the Subcontinent, was widely condemned by all and sundry, whereas the Kashmiri resistance leaders termed the massacre of Sikhs as a deep rooted conspiracy to give a communal colour to Kashmiris’ ongoing struggle. The subsequent investigations carried out at local level latter on proved it beyond doubt that it was a handiwork of Indian secret agencies but the way this coldblooded murder of innocent and unarmed minority was planned and executed at such a time speaks volumes about the cheap mentally of Indian establishment and its outrageous Machiavellian manoeuvres. The bloody plotters involved in this heinous crime didn’t stop there, to hide their misdeeds they staged yet another fake encounter Just five days after this tragic incident and killed five more innocent Kashmiris in the same vicinity claiming that the victims were the “foreign militants” responsible for killing Sikhs at Chattisingpora. The bodies of five Kashmiris killed in the fake encounter were buried separately without any postmortem examination. However, owing to growing public pressure, local authorities agreed to exhume the bodies and conduct an investigation into the deaths.
The state government in the year 2003 handed over the case to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which in April 2006 indicted five army personnel, Brigadier Ajay Saxana, Lt Colonel Brajendra Pratab Singh, Major Sourabh Sharma, Major Amit Saxana and Subedar Idress Khan of 7 RR in the fake encounter killings and described the encounter as “cold blooded murders.” The 18-page CBI charge-sheet had said that after the gunning down of Sikh community members, the army unit operating in the area was under “tremendous psychological pressure” to show results because there was allegation of inefficiency and ineffectiveness on their part. The CBI said the army personnel entered into a criminal conspiracy to pick up some innocent persons and stage manage an encounter to create an impression that the “militants” responsible for the Chatisinghpora killings had been neutralized. The Indian Supreme Court on May 1, 2012 gave the army eight weeks to decide whether the accused should be tried by a regular criminal court or face a court-martial.
On June 29, 2012 the army decided to opt for Court of Inquiry to try five officers and subsequently the Court of Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) Srinagar (designated CBI court) transferred the whole record of Pathribal case to army authorities for initiating proceedings against the accused army men under the Army Act. However, on January 23, 2014 army decided to close the case saying the evidence recorded couldn’t establish prima facie case against any of the accused.
The families, in April 2016, again filed a writ petition in the High Court seeking re-opening of the case and conducting trial of all accused in the criminal court, however that was dismissed.
Chattisinghpora, Pathribal, Brackpora incidents are just a tip of iceberg of the Indian state-terrorism in occupied Kashmir. The India occupation army has been grossly involved in horrible crimes against defenceless civilians in Kashmir for decades. During the past two and half decade Kashmiris have witnessed dozens of massacres perpetuated by the Indian occupation forces but so far none of the Indian army personnel or officer was held accountable for their actions. And what is more appalling is that the Indian army is operating in an environment where they have no fear of accountably, they can even kill and shot people whenever and wherever they like, they are enjoying impunity under a series of black laws enforced in the region. This culture of impunity under which the so-called Indian security forces are operating has turned Kashmir valley into a killing field where innocent people are being killed day in and day out by trigger happy Indian forces without any inkling of accountability. As the families of victims still await justice it is time that international human rights bodies should put pressure on Indian government to hold a free fair and impartial investigation to bring the perpetrators to justice. The wanton killings of innocent Kashmiris at the same time should serve as eye opener to world community that has maintained criminal silence on the sufferings of Kashmiri people.
