Srinagar: On 19 July 2020, a brigadier addressed a press conference at an army unit in Awantipora, 33 km from Srinagar, describing vividly an operation by his unit that led to the fatal shooting of three “hardcore terrorists”.
Five months later, a chargesheet filed by the Jammu & Kashmir police called the site of the operation, in Amshipora village of south Kashmir’s sensitive Shopian district, a “crime scene of murder”.
A sessions court in Shopian is now hearing a case against one civilian accused, and an army captain is facing a court martial.
Brigadier Ajay Katoch, Commander of 12 Sector Rashtriya Rifles (RR) stationed in Shopian, said at the press meet that in the wee hours of 18 July, “precisely at 02:00 hours”, the Army received “human intelligence inputs” about the presence of four to five unidentified militants in Amshipora.
Brigadier Katoch said that at 2.45 am, a team laying a cordon to flush out the militants came under “heavy fire”, and at 5.30 am, a search party sent into a small, newly constructed house was met with gunfire. The Army team lobbed grenades and, Katoch said, “retaliated”, causing three terrorists to be “neutralized”.
The chargesheet filed by the police, against an Army captain and others, contradicts almost every claim made at the press conference. It holds that there was no civilian intelligence—a captain of 62 RR undertook a solitary operation, a fact corroborated by four Army witnesses.
Soldiers who joined the encounter later heard a “few bursts of fire” as they were approaching on foot, according to the chargesheet. This means the first shots were fired and the alleged militants dead before the Army team arrived. No search unit was sent into the house.
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