New Delhi:
The CBI's report on the Shopian case sparked anger in the Kashmir valley on Monday; copies of the report were burnt on the streets. The Majlis-e-Mushawarat Shopian has called for a strike on Tuesday, with support from the Hurriyat Conference's moderate faction.
The CBI report ruled out rape and murder in the case, saying the women had drowned, but a skeptical Jammu and Kashmir High court says it "cannot be taken as the gospel truth." The victims' families, who have rejected the report, have been asked to respond at the next hearing in February.
The CBI has filed chargesheets against six doctors, five lawyers and two others for fabricating evidence which led to huge protests in the area. After the families opposed an open court presentation of the report, the CBI will now present the report in-camera, in the chamber of the J&K High Court Chief Justice.
In May, the bodies of two young women, Neelofer and Aasiya, were found in a stream near an orchard in Shopian, 51 kms from Srinagar. The deaths were followed by protests that lasted nearly 2 months, with many locals claiming that the women had been raped and then murdered by security personnel.
However, the bodies were exhumed by the CBI, and a medical inspection showed that Aasiya had not been raped.
The on-the-spot examination was done by doctors from AIIMS, the results were shared with the Mushawarat Majlis-e-Committee, the group that had led the protests in Shopian after the bodies were discovered.
NDTV had reported earlier that the CBI's final report will rule out rape and murder, and will instead tell the court that the two women drowned. This conclusion is based on a forensic report from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), which says that soil and water were found in the two women's lungs and other organs.
Doctors have reportedly concluded that if the women were murdered, and then thrown into the river, their bodies would have got airlocked, preventing soil and other river material from entering their organs.