4 more police officials arrested in fake encounter case in Kashmir

Srinagar, Feb 8 (UNI) The Jammu and Kashmir police has arrested four more police officials in connection with the killing of four civilians in fake encounters, official sources said.

However, this could not be confirmed officially as the Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of police, heading the special team which is probing the fake encounters, was not immediately available for comment.

Sources said Police have also questioned a number of other police officials, who were closely associated with the Special Operation Group (SOG) of the police.

A Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Hans Raj Parihar and Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP-Operations) Ganderbal Bahadur Ram and two other police officials were already in a 14-day police remand in connection with these killings.

They said a Police team from a down town police station arrested the SOG constable at Ganderbal last night. During interrogation the constable had admitted that some arms have been dumped in interrogation room at SOG camp Ganderbal which were being used to show as recovery in the fake encounters.

The arms and ammunition were later recovered from the camp in presence of some civilian witnesses, they said.

Sources said three more SOG personnel were arrested from SOG camp Sumbal and Ganderbal during night-long raids.

The Jammu and Kashmir government has already ordered a judicial inquiry into the fake encounters. The issue rocked the state assembly now in session at Jammu.

The case of fake encounter killings surfaced after one Abdul Rehman Padder was killed by the SOG.

Padder had gone missing from Batamaloo here on December 8, 2006.

A missing report was lodged with the Batamaloo police station here by his family on January 23 this year.

Padder, 35, was later allegedly killed by the Special Operations Group (SOG) of the Jammu and Kashmir police in a fake encounter at Waskar in Ganderbal and dubbed as a Lashkar-e-Toiba militant, Abu Hafiz, a resident of Multan in Pakistan.

An AK-47 rifle, three magazines, 36 rounds of ammunition and a grenade were also claimed to have been seized from his possession.

The SOG men were reportedly awarded Rs 1,20,000 for eliminating him.

The body of Padder and three more fake encounter victims were exhumed by an expert team from Chandigarh in presence of police. The victims, who were labeled as foreign terrorists by SOG, were identified by their relatives.

UNI