Srinagar, May 10: The State High Court Thursday listed the Janglat Mandi fake encounter case involving designate Army Chief Bikram Singh for final arguments on May 16.
 As soon as the case came up for hearing today before the court of Justice Mansoor Ahmad Mir, counsel for the Union of India, J S Johal along with Karnail Singh Wazir argued that the case has turned irrelevant as the Apex Court has already rejected a PIL against Major General Bikram Singh.
 The counsel for the petitioner family, Z A Qureshi pleaded before the court that they have not made General Bikram Singh as the respondent in the petition but only sought directions for the investigation into the matter.
 Senior Additional Advocate General A M Magray told the court that police have already investigated the matter and nothing was found against the designate Army Chief so the petition deserves to be dismissed outright.
 “The petitioners want the case to continue in keeping with a motive to cause problems for the appointment of Bikram Singh as the Army Chief,” he argued.
 After hearing the pithy arguments, the court posted the case for final arguments on May 16, 2012.
 While the Defence Ministry and Police have already filed objections to the petition, the court later treated the police objections as the objections of the state government on the submission of the state counsel during the previous hearing.
 Zaituna contends in the petition that her son Abdullah Bhat, a resident of Machil in Kupwara district, was killed in a fake encounter at Janglat Mandi, Islamabad (Anantnag) in March 2001 and later branded as a Pakistani militant 'Mateen Chacha'.
 Seeking constitution of a SIT to probe the case, the petitioners want a direction to the present SSP Islamabad (Anantnag) and the police officer who was holding the post of SSP on March 1, 2001, when the alleged fake encounter took place and the then Station House Officer Islamabad (Anantnag) to produce before the Court complete record file including the photographs of the deceased.
 The petitioners also seeks direction to then SSP and SHO Islamabad (Anantnag) to identify the grave where the body of the alleged foreign militant namely Ghulam Mohuiddin alias Mateen Chacha was buried so that a DNA test of it could be carried out. The petitioners also seek directions for a compensation of Rs 60 lakhs.
 Apart from other points, the police in its objections said that as per religious requirements of burial in the case of Muslim, there is no mandate provided in Shariat to mark the grave for the purpose of identification of the body and accordingly no identification mark has been put on the place where the body was buried.
 “As such there was no question of identification of the grave and contentions to this extent are misconceived” the objections said.
 According to the objections there are so many graves of unidentified militants which are without any tomb in the graveyard and after a gap of ten years it is not possible to locate or identify the same grave of the said deceased militant,
 “ The complainant party YES Kashmir representatives were called and asked to give proof which could help for locating the grave of the deceased Matin Chacha but no proof or photographs were provided to the respondents by them so the contention of the respondents that the matter was not properly verified is denied” the objections said.
 The Union of India in its response to the petition has rejected the allegations that the encounter was fake saying sole aim of the petitioners is to malign the forces.
 One of the major grounds which the Union of India has taken is that the petitioners have not approached any law enforcing authority to get investigation done for 10 years. “Only after lapse of more than 10 years, the petitioners with the sole aim of maligning the security forces and under the tutelage of forces inimical for the maintenance of peace and stability in the region has propagated a patently fanciful theory of alleged fake encounter through an NGO on June 13, 2011,” the response reads.

Lastupdate on : Thu, 10 May 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Thu, 10 May 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Fri, 11 May 2012 00:00:00 IST