STRUCTURES OF VIOLENCE

335| Structures of Violence
It is noteworthy that it took the Jammu and Kashmir
Police and Government of Jammu and Kashmir
seven years to investigate and process the case for
acquiring sanction for prosecution under AFSPA,
which apparently helped the perpetrators in evading
justice.
Further, it appears that the Ministry of Home Affairs
has taken ten years to decide on the issue of sanction
for prosecution.
The IPTK sought information on 10 January 2012 on
all cases of sanctions for prosecution under AFSPA
relating to the Ministry of Home Affairs between 1990
and 2011 in Jammu and Kashmir. No information was
provided.
The IPTK sought information on 10 January 2012 on
all inquiries and court-martials conducted by the BSF
between 1990 and 2011 in Jammu and Kashmir. No
information was provided.
Case No. 70
Victim Details
Mohammed Ashraf Teli [Torture, Extra-judicial killing]
Age: 30
Occupation: Masonry
Son of: Abdul Salam Teli
Resident of: Aunta Bhawan, Soura, Srinagar district
Alleged Perpetrators
th
1. Yadav, Commandant, 12 Battalion Border
Security Force [BSF]
2. Abdul Rashid Khan alias Rashid Billa, Station
House Ofcer [SHO], Soura Police Station,
Jammu and Kashmir Police
Case Information
At about 5 pm on 21 September 1995, Mohammed
Ashraf left his house for a haircut. When he reached
th
the 90 feet road in Soura, the 12 Battalion BSF
stopped him. They took Ashraf's identity card and
asked him where he was going. Ashraf replied that he
was going to get a haircut. The BSF personnel
allowed him to go.
The barber later told the family, after Ashraf had died,
that when Ashraf was at the barbershop, BSF sent a
boy [interviewee was unaware of the name of the boy]
to the barbershop to tell Ashraf to come and collect his
identity card. Ashraf told the barber that he would pay
him later; rst, he would go and get his card from the
BSF.
As soon as Ashraf reached the place where they had
taken his card, he was picked up by the BSF and
taken to the Soura Police Station. After he was picked
up from the 90-feet road, a few people witnessed the
incident and they came and informed the
interviewee's wife, Hajra, about the same. As a
consequence, she, along with her brother-in-law,
went to the police station to request them to release
the victim; they were told that he would be released
the next day.
At this point, interviewee was unaware that the victim
had been killed. The next day, the interviewee went to
the police station, where he found out that a BSF
Commandant, Yadav, had actually picked him up.
Yadav took him inside a bunker and told him that the
victim possessed arms. The interviewee replied by
saying that if the victim was a militant then Yadav
could kill both of them right now. He was then made to
sit inside a tent, which had utensils and rewood,
probably a mess. A BSF personnel was present with
him.
There was then a BSF camp within the Police Station.
His son was taken to the BSF camp, which is within
the lawn of Police station Soura.
On the same day at the police station, the victim was
beaten up and his body was burnt. In the evening he
was taken to Karan Nagar [interviewee is unaware of
where the victim was taken within Karan Nagar],
where he was again burnt and eventually killed. The
next morning, at about 6 am, his dead body was taken
to the temple of Vecharnag and then it was taken to
the house of a Kashmiri Pandit, namely Mohan Lal.
The BSF then blew the house up. From the outside of
the house, they shot at its walls. In this way, they
staged a fake encounter.
Along with Ashraf, one other person [whose name the
interviewee didn't know] was taken to Karan Nagar.
He was a truck driver. While they were burning
Ashraf's body, they threatened to do the same to the
truck driver unless he agreed to cooperate and
provide information.
In the locality, some people informed the interviewee
about the death of the victim. He went to the police
station along with his neighbors. There was a huge
procession outside the police station. He met SHO
Rashid Billa there, who called him inside. Billa asked
him to sit with the Munshi. Then he asked him to give a
statement saying that the victim was of unsound mind
and was killed in an encounter. The interviewee got
angry; he abused the SHO and told him that he was a
fool. He told the SHO “if his son [victim] had been of
unsound mind, then how would he have gotten
married”. This made Billa angry and he instead wrote
in his report that the victim was a militant, a member of
the Harkat-ul-Ansar.
The victim had been kept there in the police station
and even burnt, so the interviewee was certain that
Rashid Billa was as complicit in the entire crime as the
BSF.
The interviewee's neighbors saw the victim's body
and asked the former not to look at it. They said that