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CBI observed that doctors, lawyers and some civilians, including a kin of victims, conspired to falsify evidence to ”discredit and cause injury to” the police and security forces
l The medical and forensic reports of AIIMS and CFSL experts had proved that both women died due to asphyxia caused by “antemortem (before death) drowning”
l To the argument that the Himalayan nallah did not have water level so high as to drown a person, CBI counsel Anil Bhan said the agency had taken reports from the Flood Control Department regarding the water level in May and it conformed that the water level was high enough to drown them
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Srinagar, December 14
Two Shopian women were not raped and murdered, but drowned and doctors, lawyers and some civilians, including a kin of victims, conspired to falsify evidence to ”discredit and cause injury to” the police and security forces, the CBI told a Division Bench of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court here today.
The CBI said it had absolved four police personnel, who were arrested for ‘destructing evidence’, of any wrongdoing. The agency has instead chargesheeted six doctors, five Shopian lawyers and two civilians for the conspiracy to turn the two women’s death due to drowning into a case of rape and murder.
The medical and forensic reports of AIIMS and CFSL experts had proved that both women died due to asphyxia caused by “antemortem (before death) drowning”.
“A microscopic examination of material present in bronchi and bronchioles of both women reveals similarity with the control earth sample taken from Rambiara nallah,” the chargesheet, which was presented before a CBI court in Srinagar on December 10 but revealed today, said.
The accused doctors, lawyers, including the Shopian Bar President, and two civilians, including Shakeel’s brother, have been chargesheeted under Sections 167, 193, 194, 195(A), all dealing with fabrication of evidence, and 120(B), criminal conspiracy, of the IPC.
To the argument that the Himalayan nallah did not have water level so high as to drown a person, CBI counsel Anil Bhan said the agency had taken reports from the Flood Control Department regarding the water level in May and it conformed that the water level was high enough to drown them. Both women had gone missing after visiting their orchard on May 29 and their bodies were recovered from the nullah on May 30.
Bhan said both women were apparently crossing the nullah to reach their home and were swept away.
The CBI has come down heavily on two teams of doctors, one from Shopian and another from Pulwama, which carried out two postmortems.
They had ruled out the women’s death due to drowning by “flotation test of lung” while reports of the AIIMS and the CFSL said these doctors never took out their lungs. The lung was found intact in one of the victims while the so called lung of Neelofar was actually her heart tissues in multiple pieces.
Local doctors also said hymen of Asiya was torn in rags, apparently to substantiate rape charges, while AIIMS and CFSL experts found it intact. “Her vagina was normal and nothing was there suggestive of any penetration,” the chargesheet said.
Local doctors also invested and exaggerated their physical injuries. The lacerated wound on Asiya’s forehead was likely to have been caused by some hard object like rock as she drowned and it was not serious enough to cause her death, the CBI said. Neelofar’s body carried no injuries.
The doctors who have been chargesheeted are Bilal Ahmad, Nazia, Nighat Shaheen, Ghulam Qadir Sofi, Maqbool Mir and Ghulam Ahmad Paul. The indicted lawyers are MY Bhat, president of Shopian Bar Association Abdul Majid Mir, Mushtaq Ahmad, Altaf Mohammad and Sheikh Mubarak, two civilians are Ali Mohammad Sheikh and Zahoor Ahmad Ahangar, brother of Shakeel. Lawyers have been accused of acting in league with these two to induce, assault and threaten the witnesses to falsely implicate the police and security personnel of rape and murder.
The CBI said their probe was still on and a supplementary chargesheet could be submitted.
