Shopian cops sent to 10 days' police remand

The four police officers, arrested yesterday following a high court order by the SIT probing the alleged rape and murder of two women in Shopian, were sent to ten days' police remand today by a local court.

The then Shopian SP Javid Ahmad Mattoo, his deputy Rohit Baskotra, former SHO Inspector Shafeeq Ahmad and former Sub-inspector Gazi Abdul Karim were produced in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate of Budgam in central Kashmir which sent them to ten days' police remand.

The four were arrested yesterday by the SIT following an order of a division bench of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court which had also directed the SIT to take their blood samples.

The four officers were placed under suspension a day after the one-man judicial commission which probed the double murder submitted its interim report on June 21 charging these officers with destroying evidence of the crime.

Bodies of Asiya (17) and her sister-in-law Neelofar (22) were recovered near a stream in Shopian, 52 kms from here, on May 30 after they went missing a day earlier.