Claim cops miserably failed to do their job

An organisation representing Kashmiri Pandits (KPs) has moved the Supreme Court seeking a probe by the CBI or the NIA or any other court-appointed agency into the alleged mass murders and genocide of their community members in J&K during 1989-90. It claimed the J&K Police “miserably failed” to make any progress in hundreds of FIRs pending with them.

In a curative petition in the top court, Roots in Kashmir has questioned the court’s 2017 order dismissing a petition for a probe into alleged ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits. Curative petitions are generally not taken up in open court and are heard by circulation among the members of the Bench. “The instances referred to in the petition pertain to 1989-90, and more than 27 years have passed by since then. No fruitful purpose would emerge as the evidence is unlikely to be available at this late juncture,” the top court had said in its order on April 27, 2017.

Supported by a certificate issued by senior advocate Vikas Singh, the curative petition cited a 2018 Delhi court order in a case relating to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots against former Delhi Congress leader Sajjan Kumar.

The petitioners demanded an “independent committee or commission to investigate the mass murders and genocide of Kashmiri Pandits during 1989-90 and subsequent years, and also to investigate the reasons for non-prosecution of FIRs of murders of Kashmiri Pandits”.

They also sought a court-monitored probe to ensure that hundreds of FIRs reached their logical conclusion without any further delay. The curative petition also sought a direction to complete the trial and prosecution of Yasin Malik for alleged gruesome murder of four officers of the Indian Air Force on January 25, 1990. The case is currently pending before a CBI court.

Besides Malik, the plea sought prosecution of Farooq Ahmed Daar alias Bitta Karate, Javed Nalka and others for hundreds of FIRs of murders of Kashmiri Pandits during 1989-90, 1997 and 1998, lying un-investigated by the J&K Police even after expiry of over three decades.

The petition, a summary of which was released to the press, demanded transfer of all such FIRs from J&K to some other state, preferably Delhi, so that the witnesses, reluctant to approach police or courts in view of their safety concerns, could freely and fearlessly depose before agencies.

Courtesy: The Tribune India: 24th March , 2022