Srinagar: Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha on Thursday assured the families of three labourers killed in a staged encounter in Shopian that justice will be ensured to them.
On July 18, the army claimed that its troops killed three unidentified militants in a nocturnal encounter at Amshipora village in Shopian. It also said that arms and ammunition were recovered from the possession of the slain militants.
Almost 22 days after the encounter, three families from Rajouri district in Jammu region claimed that the youths slain in Amshipora were their family members who had gone to Shopian on July 17 to work as manual labour. The slain were identified as Ibrar Ahmad, Abrar Ahmad and Imtiyaz Ahmad, all hailing from Rajouri.
After addressing a public gathering in a Rajouri village, Sinha met the families of the slain trio at Tarkassi village.
An official spokesperson said Sinha expressed condolences with the families and extended full support to them and assured that justice would be ensured in the case.
“He also conveyed the message of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the government stands with the aggrieved families in the hour of grief and they will be taken care of with all support from the government,” it said.
They said the family members of the youth demanded justice and compensation. “The LG assured all three families that justice will be delivered and there would be no laxity,” according to sources quoted by KNO.
A court of inquiry ordered by the army into the incident brought out “prima facie evidence” that during the operation, “powers vested under the AFSPA 1990 were exceeded and the Do’s and Don’ts of Chief of Army Staff (COAS) as approved by the Hon’ble Supreme Court have been contravened.”
On October 2, the bodies of three youth were exhumed from a graveyard in Baramulla district and later buried at Rajouri. The exhumation took place after DNA samples of the slain matched with their families.

Reader correspondent