Tribune News Service
Jammu, January 31
The Army had exhausted all procedures from verbal warnings to firing aerial shots before opening fire to disperse a violent mob targeting its convoy with stones and petrol bombs in Shopian on Saturday. Seven men of the Army were injured and its 11 vehicles were damaged in the attack.“The action was taken as per the standard operating procedures (SOPs) laid down,” the Army has maintained in its written statement to the police on January 28, a day after the incident took place in which two youths died (now the number has risen to three with one more youth succumbing to injuries on Wednesday). The statement has highlighted how the crowd was bent upon harming Army personnel and damaging their vehicles.The police had lodged an FIR slapping charges of murder and attempt to murder on the Army and named Major Aditya, who, the FIR said, was “leading the convoy”. However, the Army has contested this and maintained that the said officer was not on the spot. The Army’s statement is its version, not a counter FIR, the police said.The statement has mentioned the sequence of events that make it clear that the Army first warned the stone-throwing and petrol bomb-throwing crowd to disperse and thereafter aerial shots were fired to keep them at a distance. “It was only after the crowd came dangerously close and injured seven personnel, and was about to lynch a Junior Commissioned Officer that the Army was constrained to open fire in self-defence,” the statement with the police said.Additional Director General of Police Muneer Khan confirmed to The Tribune that the police had received a written statement from the Army. “It will be treated as the Army version and taken into account. It has become part of the investigations.”He said that the investigation into the FIR lodged on January 27 at Shopian police station on the basis of the report of the subservient police post Keegam, Shopian, had begun. “The Army version will be read as part of the investigations.”Khan said that the Army was cooperating with police in the investigations.
To verify quantum of provocation: ADGP
- The police probe will cover all aspects, including circumstantial evidence, version eyewitnesses, injured and kin of the dead as also the Army version. The police will verify the “quantum of provocation” for the action resorted to by the Army. They will also examine the empties (fired bullet rounds) and whether those match with the rifles with the Army unit present on the spot. “Our probe will be based on the statements plus evidence on the ground,” the ADGP said.
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