The arrest of the police officers was reported late in the evening, hours after the double bench of the High Court issued its significant orders.
During a hearing today, the High Court today had ordered the immediate arrest of the four police officers, with strict instructions to all subsidiary/ subordinate courts in the state not to entertain their bail applications.
In the orders, the Special Investigating Team (SIT) of the police probing May’s double rape and murder in Shopian has been directed to take blood samples from the police officers in the presence of the registrar judicial, and send the specimens to the CBI unit of the Forensic Laboratory in Delhi for DNA tests to be matched with samples taken from the victims.
Further, the SIT has been ordered to subject the four police officers and the two key witnesses in the case to narco-analysis at the Forensic Laboratory in Gandhi Nagar, Gujarat, as the facilities for this test are not available in the state.
The case, filed by the High Court Bar Association as a Public Interest Litigation last month, had come up before a division bench of the High Court comprising of the chief justice, Justice Barin Ghosh and Justice Muhammad Yaqoob Mir, this morning during which the SIT submitted its progress report.
After an open review of the police report for nearly 40 minutes, Justice Ghosh summoned the inspector general of police for Kashmir, Farooq Ahmad, who is supervising the investigation, to his chamber for further discussion of the report.
After reviewing the recent progress in the case, which the court described as satisfactory, the division bench ordered the SIT to arrest the superintendent of police, Javed Iqbal Mattoo, the deputy superintendent of police, Rohit Baskotra, station house officer, Shafiq Ahmad, and sub-inspector Ghazi Abdul Kareem, who have already been suspended on the recommendations of the interim report of judicial commission investigating the incident.
In special instructions to all subsidiary courts in the state, the division bench has asked the four police officers not to be granted bail by any judicial authority, but to route all such applications to the High Court.
In its report to the court, the SIT has claimed to have traced the vehicle described by the eyewitnesses as having been involved in the crime, and said that the identity of the vehicle had been confirmed.
Chief Justice And Shopian Council
During the hearing, the chief justice addressed the members of the Shopian majlis-e-mushawaraat, or consultative council, spearheading the agitation in the town, who were resent in the court, and asked them to reconsider their decision to continue their strike, and to create a conducive atmosphere for the investigation.
Justice Ghosh said that the investigations had reached the present stage because of the firmness of the people of Shopian who, according to the chief justice, had gone through immense difficulties and suffering.
The chief justice assured the council that justice would be served and the guilty bought to book.
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