Srinagar, Dec 15: The High Court on Wednesday deferred the Zahid Farooq murder case till tomorrow after it heard half of the arguments of the state government challenging the lower court’s transfer order of the case to BSF court.
State government represented by additional advocate general A M Magray and government advocate Shah Aamir challenged the transfer order saying that the accused BSF commandant R K Birdi and constable Lakhvinder Kumar were not on active duty at the time of the killing.
 “Treating the accused on active duty was erroneous and improper as the offence of murder of a civilian committed by the accused was not subject to provisions of BSF Act,” lawyers said.
 “Assuming but not admitting that the accused were on official duty for purpose of medical examination of the Commandant at Composite Hospital, Humhama. On return journey from the said hospital to the place of deployment, which is Gulmarg, there is no link with the place of occurrence of incident that is Nishat,” the government counsels pleaded.
Pertinently, the CJM Srinagar Yashpal Bourney on November 25 had ordered the transfer of the case to a BSF court.
The killing of 16-year old Zahid Farooq earlier this year had evoked massive protests across the Valley. Omar Abdullah government had taken up Zahid’s killing with Home Minister P Chidambaram and it was only after the latter’s intervention that the BSF had admitted having “accidentally” killed Zahid.
Subsequently, police filed the chargesheet against the two accused after two months of the killing.
Meanwhile, the deceased’s uncle Ghulam Muhammad Shiekh also filed a revision petition before the HC seeking transfer of case to Civil court.
He filed the petition through advocate N A Ronga and said the paramilitary BSF were not on active duty at the time of occurrence of the incident. Ronga said CJM ‘misinterpreted’ the active duty and transferred the case to BSF court. He said civil offence means an offence which is triable by Criminal Court.

Lastupdate on : Wed, 15 Dec 2010 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Wed, 15 Dec 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Thu, 16 Dec 2010 00:00:00 IST