By M Ahmad
Srinagar– A court in Bandipora district has rejected bail plea of an Assistant Sub Inspector of police, one of the accused of picking up several civilians, murdering them in staged gunfights and passing them off as militants for money and awards.
The accused ASI Farooq Ahmad Gudoo, had moved bail application on “medical grounds” in connection with a case—FIR 52 of 2006 which pertains to the alleged fake encounter killing of one Ghulam Nabi Wani from Nowbug, Kokernag. Wani was allegedly picked up from outside Biscoe School in Lal Chowk here where he plied a cart for selling clothes.
A father of four children, Wani was also killed in an alleged fake encounter in Sumbal Bandipora district in 2006. He was passed off, according to the SIT charge sheet, as Zulfikar Ahmad, a resident of Pakistan Controlled Kashmir.
“It is quite pathetic to mention herein that under the cover the medical bail the accused are using it in the shape of regular bail and frustrate the proceedings of the challan,” Amit Sharma, Principal Sessions Bandipora, Amit Sharma said. “So for as the right of speedy trial is concerned the same also depends upon the role/ presence of the accused person during the trial and from the last five years none of the accused person caused their presence before the court and the evidence on record of the file is concerned it is a case which is based on circumstantial evidence and till date the statement of only 11 witnesses out of a list of 75 witnesses have been recorded.”
The court said that the statement of the material witnesses was yet to be recorded in the present challan.
The court said it has to maintain the balance between the two aspects. “On the one hand is the accused person who is seeking short term bail and on the other hand the family members of the deceased including his wife and minor children,” the court said, adding, “Therefore, in such circumstances a petitioner (Gudoo) who is an accused committing such types of horrendous crime of murder is not entitled for medical bail.” The disease which Gudoo is suffering from can be managed under the supervision and control of the concerned superintendent jail from the specialized hospital of the district where the accused is presently lying in judicial lock up, the court said.
While rejecting the bail plea, the court said “it is proper to highlight this fact that the accused persons who are involved in this FIR are none other than the police officers/officials and under the garb of the police uniform such type of fake encounter was committed definitely shaken the basic faith and confidence of the common man in the working of the police organization.”
“The crime committed by this accused person become more severe simply because of this reason that the deceased who was actually killed in this encounter was actually the resident of the village of the accused,” the court said, adding, “the deceased was working as a street vendor near BISCO School at Srinagar and it is from this place when he had been lifted by the police from the spot. Thereafter he was kept in the SOG Camp at Manasbal.”
The court said that any concession of bail either on medical grounds or any other ground at this stage of the trial will “definitely shake the spine of the common man in the present dispensation of criminal justice.”
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