In High Court, police say Army man didn’t molest Handwara minor girl

Ishfaq Tantry

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, April 20

The J&K Police today strongly refuted the allegations of the mother of a Handwara minor girl that her daughter had been in illegal custody.

A police report submitted to the J&K High Court said the girl was not molested by an Army man as alleged by some quarters. Instead she was “molested” by two local boys on April 12 afternoon, it claimed.

“On April 12, around 3.15 pm, a schoolgirl (name withheld) approached the police station, Handwara, with a grievance that she was molested, dragged and slapped by two local boys while she was coming out of a public lavatory at Main Chowk, Handwara, and this act defied her modesty,” the Inspector General of Police, Kashmir, submitted in the status report filed through Senior Additional Advocate General NA Beigh today. 

“She further stated that while molesting her modesty, the boys were telling “kya Kashmiri ladke mar gaye hai” (have Kashmiri boys died). She identified one of the boys as Hilal Ahmad Banday of Handwara and with regard to the other boy, she said she did not know him. Accordingly, a case vide Fir No. 130/2016 under Sections 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman), 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty) and 341 of the RPC (illegal confinement) was registered,” the report states, adding that in the “meanwhile some subversive elements raised a hue and cry in the town that an Army personnel had forcibly molested a minor schoolgirl in a public lavatory.”

“This incited/provoked the locals and the news spread like wildfire in the whole Handwara town. The situation took an ugly turn and a violent mob gathered at Main Chowk. To disperse the mob and to tackle the situation, Army personnel resorted to firing, resulting in death of two persons, besides inflicting injuries to some youths,” the police reports states, while blaming the Army for the civilian killings at Handwara Chowk on April 12.