Srinagar Oct 25. 2011: The High Court has directed the Director General of Police (DGP) to comply with the earlier direction vis-à-vis the constitution of Special Investigation Team to investigate Tufail Matoo case and file the compliance report to it within one week.
The Court passed the direction after counsel for the petitioner, Mian Abdul Qayoom pleaded before it that the earlier court direction regarding the constitution of Special Investigation Team (SIT) was not complied with by the state.
The High Court on September 26 had directed the DGP to constitute Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by a Superintendent of Police to investigate the case and file the progress report to it within three weeks.
The Court had also asked the SIT which was investigating the case to handover all the documents pertaining to its investigation to the SIT to be constituted by the DGP.
The Court had passed the order after hearing the arguments of the counsel for the petitioner who pleaded before it that the investigation carried out by the SIT constituted by the state following the directions of the Chief Judicial Magistrate Srinagar were sloth and unsatisfactory.
In the wake of High Court directions to the state to constitute the SIT under SP, the SIT which was constituted by the state earlier in keeping with the directions of the trial Court has lost relevance and the case will be heard by the High Court now.
After Mattoo’s death protest triggered in the valley in 2010 and at least 122 persons were killed in by Indian paramilitary forces and police personnel’s firing. According to the family, Tufail was returning home from tuition on June 11 last year when police men fired teargas shell which hit him near Gani Memorial College in Sriangar, killing him on the spot.
Qayoom, who had approached the court on behalf of the family seeking supervision of investigations into Tufail’s killing case, said that Justice Attar has also called all relevant records pertaining to Tufail’s killing case from the CJM court.
Matoo, a 12th standard student died after he was hit by a tear smoke shell in Rajouri Kadal on June 11, last year. The post-mortem report said that he was hit by a tear smoke shell in the head.
Mohammad Ashraf Matoo, father of Tufail had told media men that he has lost faith in SIT which according to him was shielding the known killer of his son.
Ashraf had said “The police are weakening the edifice of court which is an important pillar of the democracy. We have lost faith on SIT which has so far taken one year but to no avail. Police knows who the killer is but it wants to shield him.”
Tufail’s father had added that it is the police which create hurdles in court’s functioning. “Otherwise, my family and the court had helped and provided police a chance to restore its lost credibility in this case. But police has failed upto now.”
Meanwhile, the SIT as per court orders of July 16, had presented seized records before the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) Srinagar. On July 16, the court had asked SIT to submit within two-days records related to issuance of weaponry seized during its investigation in the incident.
The CJM had also sought a detailed report regarding progress in investigations into Tufail’s killing. On June 2, the CJM had also directed the head of SIT to expedite investigations and put all efforts to nab the culprit by or before the next date of hearing in the matter.
The SIT was also directed not to waste any further time in procedural wrangling and lead its investigations in accordance with law or otherwise the court will be compelled to pass necessary directions. The DIG Central Kashmir Range and the SSP Srinagar were also directed to ensure speedy investigations into the matter.
On June 1, the same court had directed head of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) to appear in person after police submitted that it had not issued any tear smoke gun on the day when Mattoo died.news reports