The Army will try in general court martial (GCM) its five officers involved in the infamous Pathribal fake encounter case of March 2000.
These officers, including a brigadier, have been charged with killing five innocent civilians in a fake encounter and after mutilating their corpses beyond recognition, presented them to the media as being foreign terrorists behind the massacre of 35 Sikh residents of Chattisinghpora in Jammu and Kashmir’s Anantnag district during then US President Bill Clinton’s official visit to India that year.
The Army has moved an application before the chief judicial magistrate, Srinagar, the designated CBI court, seeking transfer of the case to the GCM, officials here said.
They said that the CJM has directed transferring the records, including the chargesheet and other material evidence, to the GCM through the Army’s authorised officer. The Supreme Court, which was hearing the case, had in May 2012 given the Army eight weeks to decide whether the accused officers will be tried in GCM or face a trial in the civilian court.
The relatives of the victims are not happy over the development as they feel they will never get justice from the institution involved in the crime.
The CBI had in 2006 chargesheeted Brigadier Ajay Saxena, Lt. Col. Brajendra Pratap Singh, Major Sourabh Sharma, Major Amit Saxena and Subedar Idrees Khan for killing five civilians, who were picked up by them from different locations in Anantnag district before they were killed in a fake encounter at Pathribal up in the mountains.
The Army had earlier told the SC that it will not take over the case of its officers involved in the killings and that the initiation of proceedings without permission is illegal. However, the top court, while criticising the Army, said, “You are neither willing to take over the case nor hand it over to the magistrate. Nothing has happened for the last 10 years. Victims could not get justice... citizens can’t wait on interpretation and misinterpretation of facts.”
A tussle was going on between the Army and the CBI over the issue for quite some time.