Indian Army indicts nine soldiers for killing two civilians

The soldiers shot dead the civilians earlier this month in Indian-administered Kashmir

The Indian army on Thursday indicted nine soldiers, including a junior commissioned officer, after the soldiers had shot dead two civilians in the outskirts of Kashmir earlier this month, Times of India reported.

On November 3, soldiers fired at a private car in Budgam killing two passengers and critically wounding another two. The incident led to clashes between protesters and police in Indian Kashmir ahead of state elections.

Following the shooting, police registered a criminal case against the soldiers, while the army ordered an enquiry into what it called the “unfortunate loss of lives.”

As per the findings of the panel probing into the incident, the soldiers were responsible for the deaths.

Earlier, on November 13, the Indian Army convicted seven soldiers, including two officers, and sentenced them to life imprisonment for the staged killing of three civilians in Jammu and Kashmir in 2010.

On April 30, 2010, three civilians — Shahzad Ahmad Khan, Mohammad Shafi Lone and Riyaz Ahmad Lone of Nadihal, Rafiabad in Sopore — were lured to work as porters for the army in Kupwara district. Instead, the army killed them in a fake encounter, applied black paint on the clean-shaven faces of the slain, placed weapons on them and said they had killed foreign militants. It was later found out that they were the three civilians missing from Rafiabad.

The staged killings, known as the Machil fake encounter case, became one of the important reasons for the 2010 mass protests in Kashmir, in which the Indian police and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) killed more than 120 young unarmed protesters.