J&K fake encounter case: 5 more cops arrested

Five more policemen were arrested in Srinagar on Thursday and a police official detained by the Special Investigating Team in connection with the fake encounter killings by members of the Special Operations Group.

Adding a new dimension to the investigations, some arms and ammunition, including an AK-47 rifle, four grenades, one wireless set, four hundred rounds and four magazines were also recovered from inside the SOG camp at Ganderbal, 23 kms from Srinagar.

Highly placed sources said that the weapons, which were un-accounted for, were recovered by the SIT from inside the camp on the identification of the arrested cops.

"Five more cops including Syed Sakhi Shah, selection grade constable, Farooq Ahmad, head constable, Bansi Lal, constable, Manzoor Ahmad, constable and Zaheer Abbas, constable were arrested on Thursday in connection with the investigations into alleged fake encounters case," a police official said.

The SIT, Thursday also detained a sub-inspector of the SOG, Gagan Singh for questioning, according to sources.

It must be recalled that the SIT headed by Farooq Ahmad, the deputy inspector general of police, central Kashmir range has already so far arrested H R Parihar, former senior superintendent of police, Ganderbal and deputy police superintendent, SOG, Bahadur Ram in this case.

The fake encounters scandal surfaced last week with the recovery of a mobile phone belonging to Abdul Rehman Paddar, the south Kashmir carpenter, from a member of the SOG Ganderbal.

Rehman had been reported missing from the Batmaloo locality of Srinagar city.

The exhumation and subsequent identification of his body led to four more exhumations, which also threw up graves of four more civilians who had been framed as foreign militants and killed in stage-managed shootouts in north Kashmir Ganderbal areas.

The chief judicial magistrate, Srinagar has already remanded the arrested SSP, his deputy and two cops to 14 days to police custody.

Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad has also ordered a judicial probe to be carried out by a sitting or retired judge of the High Court into these murders.