Indian army closes Pathribal "fake gunfight" case of Indian-controlled Kashmir

The Indian army Friday said it has closed the Pathribal "fake gunfight " case after it could not found enough evidence to press charges against some of its men and officers. "The Pathribal case has been closed by army authorities as the evidence recorded couldn't establish a prima facie case against any of the accused persons," said Col Rajesh Kalia, a army spokesman. "It was clearly established that the incident was a joint operation by police and the army based on specific intelligence inputs," he said, adding that intimation has been given to the court of the chief judicial magistrate in Srinagar about the matter. "Statements of 50 people including locals, state government officials, police and troopers were recorded during the process of investigation," said Kalia. "Besides this forensic, documentary and other relevant records were taken into account." Indian army troopers were accused of killing five Kashmiri civilians in 2000 in Pathribal village in Anantnag district, about 85 km south of Srinagar city, the summer capital of Indian- controlled Kashmir. The killings took place five days after the massacre of 35 members of a minority Sikh community in a nearby village of Chittisinghpora, and the Indian army claimed the five men they killed were foreign militants involved in the massacre of Sikhs. The families of five slain Kashmiris contested the army version, maintaining the killed ones were innocent locals. The public outcry forced the local administration to exhume the bodies and carry out DNA tests on the corpses. The tests vindicated the families' claim and India's Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was ordered to launch a probe. The agency in 2006 indicted five Indian army troopers for the killings. But the army went to court to stop the investigation, citing the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act which gives extraordinary powers to army personnel such as shooting a person on mere suspicion in the region and prevents the troopers from prosecution by civilian courts. In 2012, India's Supreme Court gave Indian army authorities eight weeks to decide whether its personnel accused of fake encounter killings in Pathribal be tried by court-martial proceedings or by regular criminal courts. Indian troops and police have consistently been accused of grave human rights violations in the region in the last two decades. Separatists in the region have been demanding the withdrawal of troops and scrapping of special powers and have even made it a pre- condition for entering into formal talks with New Delhi. India has rejected all requests made by the local government of Indian-controlled Kashmir over the last more than two decades for sanction to prosecute its troopers for their alleged involvement in rights abuses, activists said. The region's Chief Minister Omar Abdullah wrote on twitter Friday that he was "extremely disappointed" with the Indian army's decision. "A matter as serious as Pathribal can't be closed or wished away like this more so with the findings of the CBI so self evident." Abdullah tweeted.