Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Feb 27: High Court dismissed the petition filed by lawyers’ body asking for probe into the encounters taken place in the year 2016 in Srinagar and Kupwara.
The Division Bench of Justice Ali Mohammad Magrey and Justice Sanjeev Kumar dismissed the PIL with the view that the court would not need to take any interference in the matter as the authorities have already taken steps in this regard.
“We are of the considered view that this is not a case where this Court would need to take any action in exercise of its inherent powers, for, the State and its functionaries have already taken the required steps envisaged by law”, DB concluded and rejected the prayer of conducting probe into these two incidents.
The petition, professed to be in public interest and on behalf of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court Bar Association, Srinagar was filed with the prayer, direction be issued to order and monitor conduct of probe by a team of officers in the incidents of Chak Dragmulla, Kupwara dated 21st of May, 2016 and Sarai Bala, Srinagar dated 23rd of May, 2016.
It was stated in the petition that according to the reports on 21st of May, 2016, five militants were killed and three army men injured in a nine-hour long encounter in Chak Dragmulla village of North Kashmir’s Kupwara District and the forces blew up
the house where they claimed the militants were hiding and after medico-legal formalities, the bodies of the slain militants, who were killed, were handed over to the local Auqaf Committee for last rites.
Thereafter, as stated, on 23rd of May, 2016, the newspapers reported that after getting the bodies from the forces, the local residents delayed the burial of the slain militants on Saturday evening and kept the bodies at a seminary for the night. It is alleged that the local people also contested the forces claim that the five militants were killed in a gunfight and, instead, averred that the encounter was a fake and staged one.
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