Police warning on Hyderpora probe criticism sparks outrage

Srinagar: Police top brass in Jammu and Kashmir along with the Special Investigation Team (SIT) head told media on Wednesday that they have concluded their probe into the Hyderpora encounter and said that the two civilians killed in this brief gunfight were killed in different circumstances.
The owner of the building was killed in crossfire and would continue to be in the police records as harbored of militants while as the dental surgeon, was killed by the trapped foreign militant, SIT has concluded its report into these killings.
Amir Magray has been concluded in the probe as a militant while his father who is living in police protection after he killed a militant in the Jammu region has finally moved to the court to get the body of his son for burial in his ancestral graveyard.
The probe has been widely criticized not only in Jammu and Kashmir but at many levels in various forums for its conclusions and the final report.
Most of the political leaders and political parties in Jammu and Kashmir have described the police probe as a cover-up for their murders in the Hyderpora encounter.
Police after giving a clean chit to itself and security forces in the Hyderpora encounter issued a warning to all those people who have criticized their findings including the family members of killed people and political leaders that police will proceed under the law against them if they will not stop this criticism.
J&K Police’s Special Investigation Team (SIT) on Wednesday issued a warning saying that they will go for penal action against those critical of the police’s conclusions in the Hyderpora encounter which was triggered on the evening of November 15, 2021.
Police, even after the press conference, tried to convey that it was an interim report and asked the eyewitnesses and other such people to come forward for the statements before the SIT instead of criticizing the findings.
The statement from police evoked a reaction on Twitter from Omar Abdullah, former chief minister and National Conference (NC) leader.
“If the SIT is ‘still investigating the matter’, then what was the need to rush to the press with a statement yesterday (Tuesday)? I don’t recall reading anywhere that yesterday’s report was an interim one,” Abdullah tweeted.
The press conference was also criticized because J&K police rushed to the media even as the magisterial enquiry ordered by the J&K Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha has not been public so far by the government.
The head of the SIT, a senior police officer of J&K Sujit Kumar said in a statement while reacting to the criticism, “Today on 29.12.2021 SIT (Special Investigation Team) came across several posts in media from some political leaders and family members wherein they have cast doubts on the evidence obtained by the SIT so far. These people have tried to call it ‘Concocted Cover up Story’, ‘Ornamental Probe, ‘Clean Chit to Killers’, ‘Fairy Tale of Police’, etc.”
The statement further said that it can have a “tendency to create provocation, rumor, fear and alarm among the general masses or particular section of society. This kind of approach is against the rule of law and may attract appropriate penal provisions as envisaged under law.”
The former chief minister and PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti said that police are now directly threatening all those people who still dare to question their wrongdoings in Kashmir valley. She said that “police and security forces want to continue enjoying this culture of impunity and punish anyone who comes in the way. Crushing dissent and threatening people into silence has been normalized under the garb of rule of law”.
On Thursday, the NC president Farooq Abdullah said that the SIT’s conclusions into the killing of civilians are false.
He also demanded a judicial probe so that the faith of people in the system is restored.