Srinagar: The Armed Forces Tribunal has suspended the sentence and granted bail to Indian Army’s Captain Bhoopendra Singh, alias Major Bashir Khan who was awarded life imprisonment by a Summary General Court Martial (SGCM) for the killing of three civilians from Rajouri in a fake encounter (military operation) in Amshipora area of South Kashmir’s Shopian in July, 2020.
The Indian army had initiated a general court-martial against Captain Bhoopendra Singh after a year and half in April, 2022.
He was court-martialled after a Court of Inquiry and a subsequent summary of evidence found that troops under his command exceeded their powers under the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act.
On July 18, 2020, three labourers from Rajouri —Imtiyaz Ahmad,20, and Mohammad Abrar, 16, residents of the Dharsakri village, and Abrar Ahmad, 25, from the Tarkasi village of Kotranka in Rajouri—were killed in a staged encounter in the Amshipora village. They (labourers) were dubbed as unidentified militants and buried discreetly in a graveyard in North Kashmir.
The cover over the operation was blown on August 10, 2020, when the pictures of the bodies of the three labourers were leaked on social media, a day after their families had filed a missing report with the police saying their sons, who had gone to Kashmir for work, went missing since the night of July 17, 2020. As soon as the pictures went viral on social media, the families identified the men forcing the army to order a probe into the killings.