KL NEWSNETWORK
SRINAGAR
Kashmir Bar Association Monday appealed J&K High Court to take so-motto cognizance of Drugmulla killings.
Army had claimed to have killed five militants in an “encounter” in North Kashmir’s Kupwara on Saturday. However, locals of Drugmulla have refuted such claims and said, “it was a staged encounter”.
“Bar Association Srinagar has decided to request Hon’ble The Chief Justice and his Companion Judges of the High Court at J&K, who are custodians of the life and liberty of the people, to take so-motto cognizance of the matter and entrust the investigation of the case, to a High Level, well reputed impartial investigating agency to find out, as to how and under what circumstances the aforesaid five militants, were killed by the army, at Chak Drugmulla Kupwara,” a statement issued by the association said this afternoon.
“When the entire population of the area maintains that the encounter was a fake and a staged one and on the handing over of the dead bodies to them, they found from the faces of the five militants that they had been killed 5/6 days before and had been brought to the village to show, that they were killed in an encounter, it becomes duty of the High court, which is supposed to be the watchdog of the legal, fundamental and constitutional rights of the people and their fundamental freedoms to show more sensitivity toward the issue and adopt a realistic and people friendly approach in finding out the truth, so that the rule of law prevails and the guilty doesnot escape the clutches of law or go unpunished,” the statement said.
The lawyers also condemned Minister of Forests, Ch Lal Singh’s anti-Muslim statement. Reportedly, Lal Singh had threatened Jammu Muslims of a repeat of 1947.
Bar termed the statement of Lal Singh to be a “sign of his mental bankruptcy”.
“The Bar Association wants it to be known to Lal Singh that killing of about half a million, innocent Muslims, both men, women and children in a ruthless manner at Satrwari, Samba and other places, on the pretext of taking them to Pakistan, is not something of which he should be proud of. It on the other hand is a blot on the communal forces of Jammu and he, besides being ashamed of the same, should have made mends in his behavior and assured all possible help, to the Jammu Muslims, who had gone to meet him at his residence, rather to rebuke and threaten them of the repeat of 1947 and turn them out of his home,” the statement said.
“Lal Singh having forfeited his right to represent any segment of the Jammu society, should be immediately sacked, so that people like him, when in power, do not injure the sentiments of the people of the other faith. The SHO Police Station Gandhi Nagar, has termed the threatening of little significance also deserve to be removed from his office and the incumbent posted in his place deserves to be directed to investigate the FIR lodged against Lal Singh, strictly in accordance with law, without getting influenced or overawed, by any means whatsoever.”
