Indian authorities have launched investigations into allegations that at least three innocent civilians were killed by occupying security forces in Indian Held Kashmir late last year, officials said on Monday, following public anger.
The investigations by the army and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) began after news reports said the three men had been rounded up, killed in mock gunbattles and then passed off as freedom fighters.
"Based on reports appearing in the media on alleged involvement of the army/RR (Rashtriya Rifles) in fake encounters in Ganderbal area, the army has ordered an inquiry to investigate these cases," army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel A.K. Mathur said.
"Disciplinary action will be initiated if anyone is found guilty." Ganderbal is on the outskirts of Occupied Srinagar. The Rashtriya Rifles operates together with local police and the CRPF against freedom fighters in the Himalayan territory. Over the weekend, authorities arrested four policemen-including two senior officers-accused of killing the three men people in Ganderbal and passing them off as freedom fighters.
"According to initial investigations, army and CRPF personnel also participated with local police in two fake encounters," said a police official, who did not want to be identified.
Local officials say that a policy of giving promotions and cash rewards to security forces for killing freedom fighters had led to abuses in the Himalayan territory. Human rights groups also blame a culture of impunity. Police said they have so far exhumed at least five bodies as part of their investigation into the Ganderbal killings.
The All Parties Hurriyat (freedom) Conference, demanded an impartial probe into what they say are thousands of disappearances since the freedom struggle began in 1989. Thousands of people shouting "punish the killers" took to the streets in Kokernag area. "Down with security forces," shouted the protesters, who also tried to torch the house of a policemen accused in the killings.
Mohammad Yasin Malik, a senior Kashmiri leader, said he planned to begin a three-day fast and called for a general strike on Tuesday. "It is no longer wise or fair to treat Kashmir's fake encounters as isolated instances of injustice," leading TV journalist Barkha Dutt wrote in the Hindustan Times.
"Even conservative, official estimates say more than 1,000 men have "disappeared" in the last two decades. Why then should this judicial probe be limited to investigating just five complaints?" Human rights groups put the toll at about 60,000 dead or missing.
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