[Reader-list] And India's persistent shame

[SJabbar]

Army not to hand over men accused of Macchil fake encounter


Jammu, July 25: The Indian Army has refused to hand over five soldiers,
including a Colonel and a Major, charged with the killing of three villagers
in Macchil sector of Kupwara

in April to the Jammu and Kashmir Police.
The army says that an internal enquiry was on against its men for the
alleged killing of the three in Macchil village in April, informed sources
said Sunday.

The police had filed the chargesheet in a court against Colonel D K Pathania
and four other soldiers. They were charged with killing the three and then
claiming they died in a shootout. "The five men are facing an internal
enquiry. They cannot be handed over to police unless charges against them
are proved," an army source said. "The army has instituted its own enquiry.
Until the results of that are known, there is no question of handing over
the men to police," the source said.

Riyaz Ahmad, Mohammad Shafi and Shahzad Ahmad of Nadihal village of Rafiabad
in Baramulla district, killed in the staged shootout, were shown as
"infiltrators". But a persistent enquiry by the state police about the place
where they were buried and publication of pictures of the bodies unravelled
that they were villagers and did not go over to Pakistan. They left their
homes April 27 after being wooed to lucrative jobs with army and were killed
April 30.