Civilian accused in the 2020 Shopian fake encounter gets bail

Srinagar  : The Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh high court on Friday granted bail to one of the civilians accused in the Shopian fake encounter case of 2020, who had turned an approver.

Justice Sanjay Dhar granted bail to Bilal Ahmad Lone on the condition that he will furnish a bail bond with a surety of ₹1 lakh each.

“He shall not leave the limits of the union of the territory of Jammu and Kashmir without prior permission of the trial court and he shall not influence the prosecution witnesses whose statements are yet to be recorded by the trial court,” the court said in the judgement pronounced on Friday.

Three Rajouri residents – Imtiyaz Ahmed, Abrar Ahmed and Abrar – were killed in an encounter on July 18, 2020, in south Kashmir’s Shopian by army personnel. The army initially said the three were “terrorists” but later admitted that the powers vested under the AFSPA 1990 were exceeded by their men and the dos and don’ts of Chief of Army Staff (COAS) as approved by the Supreme Court were contravened.

Army captain abducted 3 labourers, shot them & staged encounter for reward. There were three accused in the case, including main accused army Captain Bhopendra Singh of 62 RR, and two civilians— Tabish Nazir of Chowgam and Bilal Ahmed Lone, of Arabal Nikas in Pulwama.

While police filed a 1,400-page chargesheet in December 2020, Singh was tried by army court martial and the two civilians were arrested and their trial started in civilian court. Lone had turned approver in the case and had recorded his statement before the court of CJM, Shopian in 2020 as he was “tendered pardon on the condition of his making a full and true disclosure of the whole of the circumstances relating to the occurrence.”

The court, while granting bail to Lone, said the main accused (Singh) was already on bail and the trial against the co-accused (Nazir) was nearing its completion while the petitioner was in custody for the past four years.

“The petitioner has complied with the conditions of pardon by making a statement before the court martial as well as before the trial court in line with his statement recorded by the chief judicial magistrate, Shopian, at the time of tendering pardon to him. Apart from this, the petitioner is also suffering from an ailment. Therefore, this is a fit case where the petitioner deserves to be enlarged on bail,” the order said.

The state had opposed the bail contending that “unless and until trial of the case is complete, the petitioner cannot be enlarged on bail given the mandate contained in Section 306(4)(b) of the Code of Criminal Procedure.”

The summary by General Court Martial against Captain Bhopendra Singh concluded on January 17, 2023, after which the officer was sentenced to be “cashiered and to suffer imprisonment for life”. The court was, however, informed that the “said sentence has been suspended by the Armed Forces Tribunal, New Delhi, in terms of order dated November 9, 2023, and the said army officer has been released on bail.”

The police investigation had revealed that the conspiracy had been hatched by the accused, including Captain Singh, to abduct the trio and stage the encounter for reward money.

The police said the accused deliberately and purposefully chose not to follow SOPs, planted illegally acquired weapons and material on their dead bodies after stripping them of their identities and tagged them as hardcore terrorists in possession of warlike stores.

The bail order said Lone’s role in the chargesheet was peripheral. “So far as the allegations made in the chargesheet against the petitioner are concerned, his role in the alleged crime appears to be peripheral, in as much as he is stated to have accompanied the main accused to the site of encounter and has stayed in his vehicle while the alleged fake encounter took place,” the judgement said.

Three families of Rajouri had identified the slain trio from their pictures on social media blaming the army for killing them in a fake encounter in Shopian where they had gone to work as labourers.

CNI