SRINAGAR: Army has initiated general court martial proceedings against an army captain for killing three labourers in a staged encounter in Amshipura of Shopian in south Kashmir in July 2020.
Defence sources said the Army has initiated court martial proceedings against Captain Bhoopendra Singh in a staged encounter on July 18, 220 at Amshipura, Shopian after a Court of Inquiry found that troops had exceeded powers vested under the AFSPA.
In December 2020, the army had completed the ‘summary of evidence’ in the Shopian fake encounter after the Court of Inquiry found that the trio was killed in the encounter. On July 18, 2020, three young labourers from Rajouri Abrar Ahmed, 25, Imtiyaz Ahmed, 20, and Mohammed Ibrar, 16, were killed in the staged encounter by the army.
After the alleged encounter, army claimed to have recovered arms and ammunition and incriminating material from the slain militants, who later turned out to be labourers from Rajouri. After the families of the trio alleged that their wards were killed in a staged encounter and lodged an FIR in police station Rajouri, army and police launched separate probes. Later, army admitted that its men exceeded the powers vested under the AFSPA and contravened the dos and don’ts of the chief of army staff as approved by the Supreme Court.
Three months after the staged encounter, bodies of three deceased labourers were exhumed from a graveyard in north Kashmir and handed over to their families for proper burial after their DNA profiling established their identity. The separate police investigation has established that army captain Bhoopendra Singh alongwith two locals had hatched the conspiracy to abduct the civilians and stage a fake encounter.