Thaindian News

Srinagar, Dec 14 (IANS) The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Monday said the deaths of two women in south Kashmir’s Shopian district, which triggered a massive furore in the Kashmir Valley this year, were due to drowning and neither of them was raped or murdered.
“The two women died due to drowning and were not raped and murdered as was alleged,” CBI counsel Anil Bhan told reporters.

The CBI had submitted its 66-page probe report to the division bench of the high court comprising Chief Justice Barin Ghosh and Justice Mohammad Yaqub Mir which has been monitoring the case. The agency also gave an in-camera power point presentation to the bench in the chambers of the chief justice.

The two women, Nilofar Jan, 22, and her 17-year-old sister-in-law Asiya Jan, were found dead May 30 off a stream in Shopian, triggering a major uprising in the Kashmir Valley this summer amid allegations that the woman had been raped and murdered.

Shopian town, 50 km from here, observed a 47-day shutdown before the state government announced a one-man inquiry commission.

An autopsy report had confirmed that the women were raped and the government appointed commission alleged that four police officers were involved in destroying some of the key evidence following which they were suspended and arrested. The case was then handed over to the CBI in September.

The court had directed the CBI not to share its investigation with the media. However, some newspapers in Srinagar, indicating that the report was apparently leaked to them, reported that the central probe team has concluded that the women died of drowning and there was no foul play in the deaths.

The drowning theory corroborates the first statement of Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on the incident. He later said he had been misled by the Shopian district administration and police.

Sources said a charge sheet was filed Dec 10 in the court of Srinagar’s chief judicial magistrate against six doctors, five lawyers and two locals including a relative of the two women for allegedly fabricating evidence in the case.

However, the Majlis Mushawarat Shopian, which has been spear-heading the Shopian agitation, has rejected the CBI’s probe by the CBI and called for a Kashmir bandh Tuesday.