Srinagar: The Army on Wednesday filed a counter First Information Report (FIR) against unknown stone-pelters who it said forced its men to open fire resulting in the death of three youth and injuries to some others on January 27.
The Army has not identified the people who, it alleged, attacked its convoy with stones in Ganowpora village of Jammu and Kashmir’s southern Shopian district that afternoon. It said that it was the job of the police to ascertain who the assailants were and book them under the relevant provision of the law. The FIR has been lodged at the Shopian police station.
This comes days after the Jammu and Kashmir police filed an FIR against Major Aditya of the Army’s 10 Garhwal unit and his associates, invoking Section 302 (murder), Section 307 (attempt to murder) and Section 336 (endangering life) of the Ranbir Penal Code in connection with the firing incident.
The Army had termed it as a pre-mature act on part of the police and the BJP had, in the state Assembly, been critical of naming the Army Major in the FIR. Javed Ahmed Bhat, 20, and Suhail Javed Lone, 24, were killed and few other civilians injured when the Army opened fire on a stone-pelting mob in Ganowpora village on last Saturday.
Rayees Ahmed Gania, 19, who was critically injured in the shooting died in a Srinagar hospital early Wednesday, triggering fresh protests in Shopian and neighbouring Pulwama district.
The firing incident evoked anger throughout the Kashmir Valley where a shutdown was observed on Sunday to mourn and protest the killings. Shopian and Pulwama remained shut on the seventh consecutive day on Wednesday.
The Army claimed that its men had opened fire “in self-defence” and only after a 250-strong mob tried to lynch a Junior Commissioned Office (JCO) and snatch his service weapon. It also said that seven soldiers were injured and 11 vehicles damages in the mob attack. The state government has ordered a magisterial inquiry into the firing incident.
Following the FIR, charging an Army Major and his men with murder, the ruling Peoples’ Democratic Party and its alliance partner Bharatiya Janata Party locked horns in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly on Monday. After a BJP member, R.S. Pathania, demanded that the FIR be withdrawn and a fresh, without naming anybody, be reregistered, chief minister Mehbooba Mufti snubbed her coalition partner, pledging that investigations into the shooting incident would be taken to their logical conclusion. “The Army would not be demoralised by registration of single FIR. There can be black sheep in Army also,” she said in the House, currently in its budget session in Jammu.
The chief minister had also said that within moments of learning about the incident she rang up defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman. “She told me that I should take action if any carelessness or anything wrong has happened,” the chief minister said, implying that Section 302, 307 and 336 were invoked in the police FIR after consulting the defence minister.
The Army, however, has reiterated that its men did not commit any wrong. It claims that a convoy of around 30 vehicles was moving through Gonawpora when it came under stone-pelting by a 200-250 strong mob. It said that a few vehicles got separated and were trapped by protesters. It also said that the stone-pelting was “unprovoked and intense”, causing extensive damage to four Army vehicles and a JCO accompanying the convoy was hit on the head and fell unconscious. The mob tried to lynch him and snatch his weapon, it said, adding, “Considering the extreme gravity of the situation, the Army was constrained to open fire in self defence.”
The Army has said that it will not constitute any Court of Inquiry (CoI) against Major Aditya “as he did not violate the Standard Operating Procedure (SoP).”
Northern Army commander Lt. Gen. Anbu, has, however, said that the Army has conducted its own inquiry into the firing and found that the soldiers were “provoked to the ultimate” and had “acted in self-defence” and to “protect” government property.
The locals had earlier said that soldiers from the Army’s 14 Rashtriya Rifles had come to the village on Saturday morning to tear down posters carrying “tribute” to a local Hizb-ul-Mujahedin militant Firdous Ahmed Lone who was among those killed in an encounter with the security forces in neighbouring Chaigund village a few days ago.
They had said that around 3 pm on January 27, a convoy of the Army’s 10 Garhwal passed through Ganowpora and some local youth hurled stones at it following which the Armymen on board opened fire at them.
