Srinagar, July 24: The one-man panel probing killing of four persons in south Kashmir’s Shopian district on September 7 last year has indicted the paramilitary CRPF for killing three unarmed civilians while declaring the fourth one as a militant.
Informed sources told that Justice (retd.) ML Koul—tasked to probe the killings in Gagren area of Shopian on September 7, 2013—submitted his report to the Chief Minister’s Secretariat Wednesday. The killings took place on the day when conductor Zubin Mehta held a concert at Shalimar Garden here.
Sources close to the commission disclosed that it has held the CRPF guilty of killing unarmed three civilians—Tariq Ahmad Mir, Tauseef Ahmad and Muhammad Yusuf.
“Three unarmed civilians were killed when they were fleeing after the firing took place outside Gagren camp,” the probe report, the sources said, reads.
The CRPF personnel have caused the death of three by use of excessive force, they said.
The killing of fourth person has been justified by the Commission saying “Abdullah Haroon was a militant.”
According to sources, the accused CRPF personnel have been identified in the report.
Following massive public outcry against the killings, the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had ordered a probe while challenging the CRPF version that they didn’t kill the civilians but militants.
“I am still not satisfied with the facts. I want all facts but I haven’t got them,” Omar had told the Assembly on October 1, 2013, while replying to discussion on the adjournment motion moved by the opposition Peoples Democratic Party.
“Two motorcyclists, five people, four killed, one injured. I only know these things. But I am satisfied with the probe by the police so far that he (non-local) was a militant. He was not a Bihari laborer.”