The Armed Forces Tribunal on Wednesday suspended the life sentences of five Army personnel who were involved in the Machil fake encounter case in 2010, India Today reported. The military court also granted them bail.
“[The then] Omar Abdullah government [in Jammu and Kashmir] had pressured the Congress government at the Centre, and that is why this [life term] happened,” said retired Major Anand Kumar, counsel for the accused. “We are confident the entire case will be thrown out.”
Kumar further said that the tribunal had not done justice, and that the case had been built on circumstantial evidence, The Indian Express reported.
In 2014, the Indian Army had sentenced two of its officers – Colonel Dinesh Pathania and Captain Upendra Singh – and three soldiers – Havaldar Devinder and lance naiks Lakshmi and Arun Kumar – to life imprisonment for staging the killing of three civilians in North Kashmir’s Machil area in April 2010 and then attempting to blame “Pakistani militants” for their deaths.
The civilians were identified as Shazad Khan (27), Shafi Lone (19) and Riyaz Lone (20) of Nadihal village in Rafiabad. The general court martial had also held that the five should be stripped of their ranks and all pension benefits for the fake encounter.
The event had triggered widespread outrage and violence against the Army in the Kashmir Valley.
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