The depositions, held in-camera, came barely 12 hours after the Shopian Bar Association said that the special investigation team of the police conducting a parallel inquiry was holding two key witnesses and pressurizing them to change their statements.
One of the witnesses, Ghulam Mohiuddin of Girward, runs a shop barely 200 yards from the spot the incidents is supposed to have taken place, and another, Abd-ur-Rasheed Pompur, lives near the district police lines, quite close to the scene of the crime.
Both were brought under tight police security to the court of the CJM, Sham Lal Naharwal, at around 10:30 on Thursday morning, and their statements recorded under section 164-A in a two-hour session.
Both witnesses were reported to have stuck to their earlier statements (to the police) in which they had made significant revelations.
In his deposition before the CJM, Ghulam Mohiuddin, is learnt to have said that he had seen a police vehicle carrying armed persons near the Ranbi Ara bridge when he was returning home after closing his shop at around 8:15 p.m. on May 29, the night the victims disappeared.
According to the witness, several other armed personnel were standing guard around the vehicle, and he could here what appeared to be women crying and screaming for help.
He said that he heard the screams quite clearly as he went closer, but the uniformed and armed guards spotted him and intimidated him into fleeing from the scene.
HE said that another person, Abdul Rasheed Pompur, too was with him, but both of them left the spot out of fear.
The vehicle was then said to have driven off towards Batpora, and the district polices lines and a CRPF camp are learnt to be in the vicinity.
The testimony was said to have been given freely and voluntarily, without any trace of fear or coercion.
The witnesses have given an identical statement to the Shopian Bar Association.
Tight security arrangements had been made at the court complex for the deposition, and members of the international and domestic media present on the scene, too, were not allowed inside.
This is for the first time that testimony from eyewitnesses has been recorded by a court in the Shopian case, and the statements carry legal validity.
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