New Delhi, May 5
The Supreme Court has exonerated security forces of charges of stage-managed killing of a Kashmiri lawyer suspected to be a Pakistan-trained terrorist and acting as a self-styled divisional commander of militant outfit Albarq.

Finding no evidence to give credence to the allegations levelled by Gulam Mohi-ud-Din Regoo’s wife Masooda Praveen that her husband was killed in custody by the security forces, a bench of S.B. Sinha and Justice H.S. Bedi said: “We do appreciate that a fight against militancy is more a battle of minds for such persons than a victory by the security forces.”

The court said there was no evidence on record to believe the allegations of Regoo’s wife. On the contrary, Army and police records pertaining to the incident clearly showed that he was a militant and was killed while they were carrying out a combing operation.

“We cannot ignore the fact that many in Kashmir who have gone astray are Indian citizens and it is the situation that has led to this incident… we cannot ignore that in this process some unfortunate incidents do occur that raise the ire of the civil population and often exacerbating the situation and belief of being unduly targeted with a feeling in contrast of the law and order machinery,” the court said, while dismissing Praveen’s petition seeing no merit in it.

Praveen had alleged that her husband was picked up by the security forces at the insistence of some militants working as informers with the Army in October, 1994, let off after three months but detained again in Febraury, 1998.

He was tortured during the custody as a result of which he died but the forces planted explosive on his body and blew it off to make a case that he was killed in an explosion when being taken as guide to detect a militant hideout.

But the court was convinced with the material placed on record that clearly suggested that Regoo was killed in an explosion when the 17 Jat Regiment, in whose custody he was, took him to find out the hideout of terrorists as an explosive device planted by them in building’s gate went off, killing him and leaving three soldiers seriously injured.

On the issue of taking him out as guide to find out militant hideout, the court said the security forces were often put in the dock and called upon to explain when they took such steps during the combing operations, but these steps were taken by them “in the course of what they rightly believe to be the nation’s fight”.

The court, however, expressed sympathy with Praveen stating that her plight was understandable, as she was a “hapless widow” caught in the crossfire between anti-national forces and state forces and surely in such cases the tilt of justice should always be in favour of the victim as her fight was a fight of “unequals”.

But on the face of material on record and the circumstances in which her husband was killed, nothing much could be done in the case. She had sent a letter to the Chief Justice of India, which was treated as her writ petition.