Question questions and more questions? Premier investigation agency of India was expected to unravel the mystery; it has given rise to more suspicion. Truth behind Shopian rape and murder case is yet to be unearthed. CBI has not done favour to its cause; the botched investigation has destroyed its reputation beyond repair. Usual skeptics may find motives behind pro-freedom leaders trashing the outcome of the investigation; leader of the opposition Mehboba Mufti has raised some compelling questions. “How can anyone say this is body of a drowned person? Where from these violence marks and blood has come? We aren’t doctors but everybody knows that a body swells after drowning…two women have been sacrificed for pseudo national interests. Have a look at this picture and then do the justice.” 
In a charged atmosphere Kashmiri’s might not be able to see the reason. But note what others are saying. The New Delhi-based Independent Women’s Initiative for Justice (IWIJ) for Shopian, while rejecting the outcome of investigation said, “We are shocked at the pack of lies and inaccuracies being deliberately advanced by the CBI in the name of investigation and scientific evidence to pass it off as a case of drowning.”
However intellectuals driven by state interests hold the view: it is irrational to reject CBI investigation; it is a professional agency, without having solid basis, CBI will not put forward a conclusion, and risk its reputation.  Since the credibility of Indian institutions is very low in Kashmir, had it really been the case of rape and murder, punishing few even high police or security forces officers would have only strengthened the system. If police officers including SP Hans Raj Parihar in Abdur Rehman Padder fake encounter case and more recently SSP Jammu Manohar Singh, can be made to cool their heels in jail, why not few more to bolster the credibility of the system? Moreover the case is in High Court; CBI will not present anything that cannot be proved in the court. “The purpose of the protests is to malign the forces and not to find the truth-- didn’t family of Asiya Jan and Neelofar Jan co-operated with the CBI, is exhumation of the bodies possible without the consent of the family” thus spoke a defender of CBI.

Supporters of Majlis-i-Mashawarat reject this perspective of state; “Justice to victims cannot be expected from a system that perpetrates the crime”. They further claim: it is not case of few individuals who can be sacrificed at the altar of statecraft; it is matter of entire system; can a system indict itself?  Militancy is on the wane, more and more people in Kashmir are protesting peacefully against grave injustices. Government yielding on one issue will provide not only sense of achievement to general population, but will also discredit the theory of ‘habitual protestors’. State is intolerant towards peaceful agitation and calls it “agitational terrorism”. Once a violation is proved and culprits are also punished publicly, India ultimately will have to accept responsibility of every human right abuse committed by its forces in Kashmir.
India cannot take risk of empowering people and undermining its forces. In such a scenario security grid enacted painstakingly will crumble, can India risk reversing the gains of security forces in Kashmir?  System in Kashmir operates due to presence of security forces; it is not based on the credibility or will of the people. First comes the system, credibility comes later. India believes, for how long people will protest, they will tire and eventually get quiet, as happened in the past.  Counter arguments carry much weight in Kashmir.

Some influential leaders in freedom camp had criticized family of the murdered women for cooperating with CBI investigation. In hindsight, family’s decision proved to be a right one; it helped to call the bluff. It has contradicted the state propaganda, people are motivated to malign the forces, and protests are for the sake of protest. By joining the probe, family has proved their intention beyond any doubt; they only wanted to find out the truth. Had they been habitual protestors they would have never joined the CBI probe.

In contravention of Jan Commission, SIT findings and broad public understanding, CBI has propounded the theory of drowning.  Findings of CBI also belie the conventional wisdom. CBI has taken refuge behind the intricacies of Forensic Science and inconclusive evidence to draw a firm conclusion. Is it science behind the fiction or fiction behind the findings?  It is an effort in vain, to sink the issue of rape and murder deep in the labyrinth of Forensic Science.  To back it’s drowning theory CBI has claimed in its report: the hymen was intact in case of Asiya and there were no marks on the body of Neelofar to suggest that she was raped; semen could not be detected and no male fraction DNA profile could be generated from the vaginal smears of both Neelofar and Asiya; lung floatation test conducted by the team of doctors from Shopian hospital was wrongly done on heart tissue of Neelofar; lungs were found intact in the chest cavity.

There are yawning gaps in CBI’s findings, even if Asiya's hymen was intact; experts believe that doesn't mean, “No rape had happened." In some cases hymen remains intact even after penetration.  The first post mortem report conducted at Shopian had found, Asiya’s ‘hymen was torn.”  CBI reports “Semen could not be detected.” Ever body knows bodies were found in water. CBI also in its investigation reports “presence of mud and sand in the bodies of the deceased”. when bodies had remained for considerable length of time in water, most probably traces of semen may had washed away. Nevertheless the first post mortem report and subsequent tests carried had found semen on the dead body. Lung floatation test was carried on a “heart tissue of Neelofar” claims CBI. Even a child can differentiate between heart and lung; a trained doctor carried post mortem. 
CBI in a well thought out strategy has tried to discredit the post mortem report produced by Kashmiri doctors, by raising fingers on their integrity “doctors conspired to defame, discredit and cause injury to the personnel of the police and security forces”. By way of this logic, not doctors and lawyers alone are in dock. Aspersions can be cast on Justice Jan also, who ruled out ‘drowning as a cause of death”. And what about Omar Abdullah’s government which had accepted the recommendations of Jan commission and ordered prosecution of four police officers? By the yard stick CBI applied, Justice Jan, IGP heading SIT including the chief minister, all needs to be charge sheeted? And millions of people protesting killing of innocents also needs to be put into jail.  If Kashmiri professionals are motivated what about CBI, whose sole aim, which can be easily made out from the report, is to defend the forces. And the integrity of the AIMS doctors also lay in taters “A forensic expert from the AIIMS in Delhi alleged on Tuesday that his colleagues -who had declared the Shopian deaths as drowning -- were not professionally competent…Dr T.D. Dogra lacked "integrity and required qualification”.  Credibility of CBI is well known in India, it is tool of its masters!

Debating back and forth, post mortem reports will not unravel the truth. Let’s ask our selves a common sense question, is it possible for two young women to get drowned in two or at the most three feet deep water. In living memory, no case of drowning has been reported in Rambiara Nallah-- “Not a single FIR has been registered in Shopian Police Station about any drowning incident.”  According to CBI investigation, “The photographs and videos of the Rambiara Nallah taken a few days after the incident, when the discharge of water had decreased, still show a very fast moving stream, creating a great deal of noise as it moves amongst a huge number of rocks and boulders”. CBI wants us to believe, women died due to ferocity of the water in a stream, full of rocks and boulders. If so, women should have marks of deep injuries and multiple fractures on their dead bodies. But then CBI also claims Asiya had a small injury on her head (non-lethal) and Neelofar had no injury at all.

If, two (not one) women drowned at the same time, in a shallow stream, (almost in their backyard) which they would have crossed a number of times, then this could only be a case of forced drowning not an accident? CBI do mention possibility of forced drowning, “In view of… drowning as the cause of death… extensive efforts were made by CBI to find out whether there was any foul play in the drowning of the deceased.” However it is ambiguous about the outcome of “extensive efforts.” Why CBI is silent on forced drowning angle? Is this ambiguity deliberate and part of a design to save the culprits?

(Feedback at firdoussyed@yahoo.com)

Lastupdate on : Fri, 18 Dec 2009 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Fri, 18 Dec 2009 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sat, 19 Dec 2009 00:00:00 IST