A day after Jammu court ordered the Jammu and Kashmir police to file an FIR against the 6 members of SIT which probed the Kathua rape and murder case for allegations of custodial torture to falsely implicate one of the accused, the Jammu & Kashmir Police denied the charges. The Jammu and Kashmir police chief Dilbag Singh said that no witness was tortured, and the court’s directive to file FIR against the police officers will be followed.
Yesterday, the Jammu court had ordered FIR against members of the SIT accepting a complaint lodged by three witnesses in the case. The witnesses have alleged that they were tortured and forced to give false statements against Vishal Jangotra, son Sanjhi Ram, the main accused in the case. While Sanjhi Ram and five others were convicted by the trial court, Vishal was acquitted in the case of rape and murder of an 8-year-old girl in Kathua in Jammu and Kashmir.
Talking to reporters about the court order, Dilbag Singh said that all necessary actions will be taken to follow the order. He said that not every FIR is necessarily based on facts. “Sometimes there is an aim, motivation and the Court’s direction came and we will see. We investigate thousands of cases. We have more than 17,000 cases registered every year.”
“It does not mean that we pick up people and torture them. So there are cases, high-profile cases, where people resort to this kind of actions and reactions. We will certainly take action as per law and there is nothing to worry about,” the police chief said defending the SIT members and denying the charges made by the witnesses.
The Jammu court had ordered the FIR against SIT on a petition filed by Sachin Sharma, Neeraj Sharma and Sahil Sharma, after their complaint to police was ignored by the J&K police. The order issued by Jammu court mentioned that since Vishal Jangotra was acquitted under the court of law and has been exonerated from all the charges levelled against him, it is further proved that the SIT members had deliberately tortured witnesses in custody and compelled them to dispose of false statements against Vishal.
The court had ordered FIR to be filed against SSP R K Jalla (now retired), Additional Superintendent of Police Peerzada Naveed, Deputy Superintendents of Police Shetmbari Sharma and Nissar Hussain, Sub-Inspector Urfan Wani and Kewal Kishore, all from Crime Branch of Jammu police. The court also asked the police to submit a compliance report by the next hearing on 7th November.