The men – laborers Abrar Ahmad Khan, Imtiyaz Ahmad and Abrar Ahmad Yousuf, who left their homes to look for work – died during an army operation in July. Local police recovered pistols and live ammunition from the scene, and a special investigation unit said the army initially portrayed the victims as ‘militant’.
In a statement Sunday, police accused Captain Bhoopendra Singh and one of them of kidnapping and killing the men, saying they staged the killings as a fake military encounter and planted illegally obtained weapons and materials on their bodies after planting them. identity stripped. and labeled them hard terrorists. ‘
Police added that Singh had chosen ‘deliberately and purposefully’ not to follow the standard procedures in Kashmir.
The Indian Army has not indicated whether the captain will be tried under civilian jurisdiction or in a military court. Under an emergency law imposed in Jammu and Kashmir since 1990, Indian Army soldiers cannot be tried in civilian courts under ordinary jurisdiction without the permission of the federal government.
However, prosecutions of army officers for alleged crimes and abuses are rare, and similar allegations of advanced incidents have been made in the past, making the investigation and charges all the more unusual.