Antony seeks report on J&K encounter

NEW DELHI: Defence minister AK Antony has directed the Army to submit a detailed inquiry report on the alleged fake encounter in Poonch district of Jammu and Kashmir last Sunday.

Sources said Antony had expressed "concern" at reports, which held that the Army had stage managed the killing of a mentally-challenged civilian from Rajouri on the pretext that he was Abu Usmaan, a senior commander of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, from Pakistan.

As reported by TOI earlier, the police have arrested a special police officer, Noor Hussain, and a Territorial Army jawan, Abdul Majeed, for conspiring to murder Rajouri resident, Ashok Kumar, to gain personal benefits.

Initially, the Army had claimed the victim was Abu Usmaan, who had been killed after a 12-hour encounter in the forests in Surankote area, and even showed the "recovery" of a pistol, a wireless set and a diary from the site to buttress its claims. But later it backtracked after it became clear that the victim was a civilian, and not a militant.

The incident has come as a big embarrassment for the Army, which has in the past also been hit by some of its battalions deployed in counter-insurgency operations resorting to fake encounters in a bid to garner gallantry awards, commendation cards or unit citations.

The concept of "kills" as a performance indicator is deeply ingrained in Army units deployed in counter-insurgency operations in J&K as well as the north-east. Several cases of innocent civilians being paraded as "apprehended or surrendered militants" have also been detected in the past.