Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir police has informed a local court that no case is made out against Army’s Major Leetul Gogoi who was detained briefly by local police on May 23 after he had a scuffle with the staff of a Srinagar hotel on being refused to check in with a local teenage girl.
The police has informed the court of Srinagar’s Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) that the incident was not cognisable as the girl has in her statement to it recorded in presence of a magistrate said that she wanted to meet and spend some time with the Army officer at her own sweet will.
“The case was not found cognisable. The girl was handed over to the family while Army officer Leetul Gogoi and his associate Sameer Ahmed Malla were handed to their Army unit,” the report submitted by the police in the court said.
The court had earlier asked the police for status of the case after a local human rights activist Muhammad Ahsun Untoo approached it and sought directions from it to the police to know what action was taken and why Major Gogoi was set free by it.
Major Gogoi had booked a room in Hotel Grand Mamta in tourist frequented Dal Lake area of Srinagar online. A teenage girl from Chak-e- Kawoosa village of the Valley’s central district of Budgam along with a local man Sameer Ahmed Malla who later turned out to be soldier also arrived at the hotel with him.
The hotel staff had told the police that the person by the name of Leetul Gogoi who had introduced himself as a businessman from Assam while booking a room on line for two persons for one night had arrived at the reception around 11 am on May 23 along another person and a girl.
The second person, it said, was driving the Maruti Alto car in which they had come to the hotel.
While mentioning the purpose of his visit and mode of payment, Major Gogoi had said “I am travelling for business and I may be using a business credit card”.
The staff at the hotel front desk had asked him to show his identity card which he failed to do and instead gave it his driving license. When the front desk staff asked him about the girl he wanted to check in with, neither he nor she could give it a “satisfactory answer”.
This made the hotel staff suspicious and when it refused them to check in, “the driver became violent and started abusing and threatening us.” The argument turned into a physical brawl.
The hotel staff called the police after the brawl, which took the trio including Major Gogoi to city’s Khanyar police station.
A day later, the Army ordered a Court of Inquiry against Major Gogoi and said in a statement that if found guilty, appropriate action would be taken against him. Army Chief General Bipin Rawat had during a visit of the Valley assured that exemplary punishment will be awarded to Maj.Gogoi “if found guilty of any offence”.
He had told reporters at Pahalgam “If any officer of the Indian Army is found guilty of any offence, we will take strictest possible action. If MajorGogoi has done something wrong, I assure you that he will be awarded punishment at the earliest and the punishment will be such that it will set an example.”
Major Gogoi of Army’s 53 Rashtriya Riffles is the same person who had earlier in April 2016 stirred up a hornet’s nest by ordering his men to tie Farooq Ahmed Dar, a Kashmiri shawl-weaver from Chhil Brass village of Budgam, to the bonnet of an Army jeep during by-poll in Srinagar Lok Sabha constituency. He is a resident of Assam.
