Rakib Altaf
SRINAGAR: The paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force or CRPF have denied that three of the four youth they shot dead at Shopian in south Kashmir on Saturday were civilians.
The police, in a statement issued Monday evening, had said the three “do not have any previous record of militancy.”
They identified them as Tawseef Ahmad Bhat resident of Baba Mohalla Shopian, Mohammad Yousuf Sofi resident of Durpora, Zainapora, Shopian and Tariq Ahmad Mir resident of Okay, Kulgam.
The fourth “non-local looking person, neither claimed nor identified by any local”, they said, was Abdullah Haroon, a member of the Lashkar-e-Toiba militant group.
However, the Inspector General of CRPF, Nalin Prabhat said this statement by the police “did not give a clean chit” to the slain youth.
“Police did not say that they were not militants, they just said no previous records were available with them,” he said.
Mr Prabhat insisted that “with new recruits getting into militancy everyday the inquiry will reveal that they were involved”.
The killings in Gagren area on Saturday have caused outrage in the valley. But the authorities are still silent on what exactly happened.
Mr Prabhat maintains that six motorcycle borne militants had attacked the CRPF post and that four of them were killed after the soldiers retaliated.
However separatists and residents have said the four “civilians” were killed in “cold blood”.
Even some pro-India political parties have condemned the killings of the youth in “unprovoked firing” by the CRPF.
