A spokesperson for the Indian Army’s Northern Command has confirmed the life sentence awarded to six personnel, including a colonel and major rank officer, for the 2010 Machil fake encounter case in India-held Kashmir, the Hindustan Times reported on Monday.
“General Officer Commanding in Chief (GOC-in-C), Northern Command, Lieutenant General DS Hooda has confirmed the sentence of a Summary General Court Martial in the Machil encounter case,” Colonel SD Goswami, spokesperson of the Indian Army’s Udhampur-based Northern Command said.
“Colonel Dinesh K. Pathania , Major Upendra, Havildar Devendra Kumar, Lance Naik Lakhmi, Lance Naik Arun Kumar and Rifleman Abbas Hussain have been awarded life imprisonment,” he said.
The April 2010 killings in Machil sector had sparked widespread protests in Kashmir at the time, leading to 120 deaths in battles between demonstrators and security forces, according to the Press Trust of India news agency.
Hundreds were reportedly wounded in the riots while thousands of Kashmiri youth were detained as well.
A case was registered by the local police against nine Indian army personnel and two local residents, who had claimed that three ‘Pakistani terrorists’ were killed in the encounter.
A probe into the incident had later proved that the three Kashmiri labourers (Shahzad Ahmad Khan, Mohammad Shafi Lone, Riyaz Ahmad Lone) were lured with promises of jobs and taken to the border where they were killed in a fake encounter in the Machil area of northern Kashmir’s Kupwara district near the Line of Control (LoC).
The Indian army had subsequently ordered a general court martial that found the six army personnel guilty of charge.
