By Arun Sharma
A day after the December 21 terror attack in Poonch on an Army convoy in which four soldiers were killed, eight civilians were picked up and allegedly tortured by security forces — three of them died, five were admitted for treatment at Government Medical Hospital, Rajouri. There were five more civilians who have alleged torture and detention, The Indian Express has confirmed.
All are residents of Topa Pir village in Poonch and were admitted to another hospital on the night of December 22 and discharged on January 13.
They slipped under the official radar amid high-profile visits by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Army Chief Manoj Pande, both of whom flagged the excesses and assured the families of justice.
The Jammu and Kashmir Police is learnt to have asked the Army to provide medical records of these five men, identified as: Riaz (25) and his brother Farooq (19), Israel (20), Jameel (18), and Irfan (18).
Said a senior police officer: “Their records are needed as the injured have to be produced before a judicial magistrate to record their statements as part of the enquiry into the death of three civilians… These five are eyewitnesses since they were picked up alongside the three from Topa Pir who died.”
This story was originally published in indianexpress.com. Read the full story here .