CBI to submit Shopian case report in Jammu and Kashmir high court

Curtain is likely to be drawn over the mystery surrounding the recovery of two bodies of women in Shopian tomorrow with the CBI set to submit its report to the Jammu and Kashmir High Court here.

The CBI, which had been given a two-month time by a division bench of the high court on October 13 to finish the probe into the alleged rape cum murder case, was expected to submit the statements of witnesses and the forensic examination of the bodies of Neelofar (22) and her sister-in-law Aasiya(17), official sources said today.

The recovery of the two bodies on May 30 had sparked a widespread agitation in Shopian, 51 kms from here in South Kashmir, for 47 days. The protestors were claiming that the two had been raped and later murdered by security personnel.

The CBI is likely to point out the alleged irregularities by the team of doctors and the role of some of the lawyers in Shopian in fuelling the turmoil in the apple-rich district of the state, the sources said.

However, during the exhumation of the two bodies from the grave by the CBI, a team of doctors from AIIMS had claimed during post-mortem that one of the victim ?" Asiya ?" was never raped, the sources said.

A CBI team with the help of a special forensic team comprising doctors from AIIMS and local medicos came to this conclusion during an on-the-spot examination of the body of Aasiya, one of the two victims whose body was exhumed on September 28 at a graveyard in Bonigham in Shopian.

The forensic experts have found that Aasiya's hymen was intact, the sources said, adding the experts shared their finding with the doctors of Mushawarat Majlis-e-Committee, an amalgam which spearheaded the 47-day agitation against the incident, who were present at the site.

In yet another twist to the case, a doctor who prepared the vaginal slides of the victims told the CBI that no samples had ever been taken from the women.

The doctor, who was a part of the second postmortem team from Pulwama district hospital, was questioned by the CBI team camping here during which she told the investigators that no vaginal swab was ever taken of Neelofar and Aasiya, the sources said, adding, the doctor broke down during the questioning and narrated the entire sequence of events to the CBI officials.

They claimed that the doctor had taken samples from gloves used in the gynaecological ward of the district hospital and prepared a slide which showed presence of semen. The CBI conducted searches at the hospital and seized various pairs of gloves and records from there.

Nazia Hassan, the doctor who was part of the first medical team had deposed before the Justice Jan Commission stating that she could not conduct examination of vagina of the victims because of 'rigor mortis' (stiffness in the body after death).

The second lady doctor had stunned everyone by claiming that she had been able to take the vaginal swab and also prepare the slides for forensic examination.

Another twist in the case came when two key witnesses -- Abdul Rashid and GM Lone -- retracted from their earlier confessional statements in which they had earlier claimed before a magistrate that they had heard cries of women coming from a police vehicle.

However, after the CBI sleuths tried to make sense out of their confessional statement, both the witnesses broke down and claimed that some lawyers had offered them money and setting up of business in lieu of making such a statement. They said this statement of Rashid and Lone was recorded afresh before the Chief Judicial Magistrate.

Following this, the CBI questioned four lawyers, including public prosecutor Mushtaq Ahamed Gattoo, in connection with unrest in Shopian town of South Kashmir following the death of the two women.

The lawyers were summoned by the probe agency for recording their statements during which all the four, including Gattoo, were questioned for allegedly influencing some of the witnesses to make statements before the one-member Jan Commission and the court in Shopian, the sources claimed.

Shopian township had witnessed a 47-day protest after Neelofar and Aasiya were found dead near a stream behind an orchard in the last week of May this year. It was alleged the two were raped and murdered.    

The CBI took over the investigation into the case on September 17 and a team headed by deputy inspector general Satish Golcha has been camping here since then. The agency's special director SC Sinha had also visited the place to take stock of the situation.

Ahead of the CBI investigations, the state government had appointed one-man commission headed by Justice (Retd) Muzzafar Jan who, among other things, had recommended a detailed questioning of the relatives of the victims including Neelofar's husband Shakeel and her brother Zirar Shah.

Four police officials including the then superintendent of  police Javed Iqbal Mattoo, deputy superintendent of police Rohit Basgotra, SHO Shafiq Ahmed and sub inspector Gazi Karim were arrested on July 15 for destroying evidence in the case.

However, the local special investigating Team headed by the inspector general of Kashmir Police Farooq Ahmed could not find any evidence against them. They were subsequently released by the high court on bail on September 11.