Probe into 1991 Khanyar massacre stalled on flimsy grounds
ISLAMABAD, (MILLAT ONLINE):In occupied Kashmir, it took five years but the Home Department has finally submitted its reply to the Human Right Commission in a petition related to the Khanyar massacre of 1991.
According to Kashmir Media Service, the reply says the Home Department has denied sanction to the case, on one pretext or another, the latest of which is that the police do not possess an English translation of the FIR and of statements of witnesses.
Now the police are working on the translations, so that the file can be sent back to the Home Department. A petition was filed before the Human Rights Commission in 2013 by human rights activist Muhammad Ahsan Untoo, seeking justice for the massacre in which 22 civilians were killed by government forces in Srinagar’s Khanyar area. The Home Department has now stated in its reply that the police investigation into the case is in want of an English translation of the First Information Report (FIR) and of statements of witnesses.
A police report dated January 16, 2018, states that the Home Department kept returning the file sent to it for sanction. The last time it returned the file was in December last year. When Untoo’s petition was filed on February 28, 2013, before the HRC, the commission sought a report from Director General of Police, on the investigation into the Khanyar massacre. As yet, nothing substantial has been filed before the commission.
The petition states that on May 8, 1991, when a peaceful procession carrying bodies of persons killed in forces’ firing in Dachigam and of those killed in forces’ firing in Srinagar’s Saida Kadal locality, were being brought for burial, the troops deployed at Khanyar opened fire on the mourners and killed 22 unarmed civilians, while injuring more than 52 others.
“After sometime when the firing stopped, people tried to move to their respective places, when a group of paramilitary forces coming from Nowhatta started firing again on the passersby, due to which some more persons got killed and a number of others injured,” the petition stated, adding, “This again is clear evidence that innocent people are being killed in Kashmir. In this incident, five women namely Fatima, Shamima, Samina, Dedri, Khati and an infant of two years were killed.