Srinagar, Aug 31: Overturning a lower court’s order, the Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court has sentenced a former police officer to life imprisonment for his role in a fidayeen attack in Kupwara district over two decades ago.
A division bench of Justices Sanjeev Kumar and Sanjay Parihar on Saturday convicted Ghulam Rasool Wani, former Sogam Station House Officer (SHO), for criminal conspiracy in the 2003 fidayeen attack that left two CRPF personnel dead.
The HC found him guilty of aiding a Pakistani militant in carrying out the attack and sentenced him to life imprisonment while upholding the acquittal of his co-accused.
Overturning the trial court’s acquittal of Wani, the Justices, while partly allowing the state’s appeal, said, “We are absolutely clear that the findings of acquittal recorded in favour of Wani, not only was perverse, but the trial Court had ignored the clinching evidence”.
The division bench said Wani not only knew the Pakistani attacker, Mohammad Ibrahim alias KhalilUllah (now deceased), but had brought him safely to the scene of the crime by disguising him as SOG personnel.
The order said Ibrahim had come to the crime scene with the motive of killing the security personnel, and his act was “duly facilitated” by Wani.
According to the prosecution, Ibrahim, disguised in a police uniform, was ferried from Sogam Police Station to the attack site in an official police vehicle by Wani and his co-accused, Abdul Ahad Rather, the station’s Moharir (record keeper).
However, the court found no substantial evidence against Rather, describing the case against him as “hypothetical” and lacking proof.
Proceedings against Ibrahim had abated due to his death during the attack.
