Srinagar, July 13: The judicial commission which probed the alleged rape and murder of two women in Shopian today received flak of locals including the relatives of the victims who accused it of failing to identify the culprits and maligning them.
Shakeel Ahmad Ahangar, husband of Neelofar and brother of Asiya, the two women allegedly raped and murdered in Shopian on May 30, today said he will file a defamation case against Justice (Retd) Muzaffar Jan who conducted the probe into the incident for his remarks on his personal life.
“The commission should produce the persons who provided wrong information about my personal life. if it fails to produce the persons, I will be left with no option but to file defamation case against the commission”, Shakeel told reporters today.
On the Commission’s recommendation that he should be interrogated for his possible involvement in planning and executing the incident, Shakeel said, “All my family members including me are ready to undergo interrogation if it helps to identify the culprits”.
Neelofar’s father, Syed Abdul Hai, said it was shocking that the Commission has defamed the people of Shopian in general and the family of the victims in particular.
“The report says Shakeel and Neelofar had eloped and married in April-May 2007, but their son is two years and two months old”, Hai said strongly denying the allegations against Shakeel.
Terming all the points about his personal life in the report as “defamatory and wrong”, Shakeel said, “…the inquiry not only resorted to my character assassination but also pointed fingers on the character of my dead wife”.
Meanwhile, Majlis-e-Mushawarat Shopian (MMS) which was formed to obtain justice for the victims today termed the report of the Commission as “irrelevant” and decided to continue the strike.
“The 21-member MMS unanimously decided to continue the strike till the perpetrators of the crime are punished”, MMS Spokesman Mohammad Shafi Khan told reporters today.
Accusing the Commission of adopting an unprofessional approach, he said instead of trying to identify the real culprits, it has attempted to victimize the person crying for justice.
The High Court Bar Association ridiculed the findings as “kitchen report” saying the Commission devoted more time and paper to tarnish the image of the victims’ family than to identifying those guilty of the henious crime.
Echoing them PDP President Mehbooba Mufti said, “The Commission’s report is more about assassinating the character of the family members of the victims than trying to identify the culprits.
Shopian residents also reacted angirly to Jan Commission findings saying it was appointed to shield the culprits and it did exactly that.
“We knew from day one that the Jan Commission will not do anything other than hatching a conspiracy to shield the culprits. It turned out to be what we were expecting,” Farooq Ahmad a businessman of Shopian said.
“We were having no faith in the commission. We knew that it will attempt to shield the culprits in a judicious way. The time-buying approach adopted by the commission while carrying out the investigation was enough for us to believe that it was formed to hush up the case,” Shopian businessman Manzoor Ahmad said.
-Agencies