The Bullet Resonates A ‘Cruel Joke’

No less than six-and-a-half years had passed by this peak winter when Mohammad Ashraf Mattoo thought he was to learn something decisive about the killing of his teenage son. The middle-aged Srinagar resident, who has been fighting an excruciating legal battle over 17-year-old Tufail Mattoo’s death at the hands of the police, lost no time after news broke that a panel probing the 2010 incident had submitted its report to the government. At the office of the Koul Commission that had handed over chief minister Mehbooba Mufti a 320-page document the previous day, Ashraf was given a small chit. Its content only added insult to his injury.

“The commission has recommended a CBI inquiry into the petition of Mohammad Ashraf Mattoo, f/o Tufail Mattoo, Said Kadal, Srinagar.” That was all the 53-year-old father found written on the note he received from Habibullah Bhat, the registrar of the inquiry body headed by retired judge M.L. Koul.

“What a cruel joke! This has reopened our wounds; we have again started bleeding,” says Ashraf, about the ‘finding’ of the one-man panel that was constituted in June 2014 by the then Omar Abdullah government to inquire into the killings of 100-plus civilians in protests that swept the state capital four years prior to it. “If the commission simply recommends a CBI inquiry, then what is its own finding?”

In all earnestness, Ashraf was expecting the commission would name the police personnel and their seniors responsible for the firing at his son and others. “I feel, all these years I was chasing a mirage. Turns out that those who didn’t go before the panel were right—for, it has not identified any armed forces personnel or policemen (responsible for the loss of lives),” he sighs. “We may go to some international forums now. We have exhausted every option in Jammu and Kashmir.”

Ashraf’s son died on June 11, 2010, when—according to an eyewitness—certain personnel at Maharaj Gunj police station fired at him that summer evening. Tufail’s killing evoked protests, leading to a five-month-long agitation that claimed the lives of 112 civilian protesters besides wounding hundreds in firing by government forces. Four years later was formed the Koul commission to look into the entire episode and submit its report in three months. The panel was also asked to recommend action against persons and authorities responsible for using excessive force during the violent upsurge.

The commission earned several extensions and took two-and-a-half years to eventually come up with a report, which it submitted to the CM on December 30, 2016. It did not name any person, while holding security forces and the police responsible for using “excessive forces in 80 per cent cases of 63 civilian killings” the panel investigated. (The rest 49 families did not appear before the panel.) In two cases, according to registrar Bhat, the commission has identified as many police stations responsible for the killing of a couple of youngsters. The Tufail case merits a CBI inquiry, the panel recommended to the government.

Ashraf is shocked even as Bhat refuses to share a copy of the report with the families of the victims. Tufail was his only child, whose killing in mid-2010 made Ashraf’s life single-tracked. His only mission since then has been to bring the killers of his son to justice. The outcome of Tufail’s case will have a major impact on the fate of hundreds of other civilians bereaved by the government forces since 2008, he believes. That way, Ashraf stands out on the legal map of the Valley, where families often refrain to move court against the armed forces and police when it comes to human-rights violations, which entail long legal procedures.

Ashraf’s fate changed—for the worse—the year he was looking for a bright future. In 2010, he was to travel to West Asia to do business in Oman. Ahead of it, the man gave up his flourishing trade in Kashmiri handicrafts. It was at this juncture his son was killed. Ashraf plunged into a legal battle that actually proved to be time-consuming. His very life got centred around the litigation. Every day, Ashraf would go through the case file, jot down points and inform his visitors—mostly journalists these days—how the police “messed up” an investigation to “save its men”.

Tufail was a 12th-standard student in 2010 when he was heading home at the Old City of Said Kadal from a tutorial. The day was June 11, and the time 6.30 p.m. With his school bag slung from his shoulder, the boy was walking through Gani Memorial stadium when he was fired at from a close range. The gunshot spluttered his brain. People gathered and recovered a five-rupee coin from his closed fist. The father, shattered, preserves the poignant copper-nickel ‘souvenir’ at his residence. Such was the display of public sentiment associated with Tufail’s death that locals buried the split parts of his brain separately. His schoolbag is still in police custody.

Tufail’s end evoked massive outrage that translated into five months of agitation—till the end of autumn that year, by when instances of firing killed 112 people and wounded hundreds of others. Ashraf clung to his firm faith in law, justice and democracy. He approached the police to file a complaint against the uniformed men involved in his son’s killing. The cops refused, prompting him to appeal to Srinagar’s chief judicial magistrate (CJM). The official directed the police to do what Ashraf wanted: register a first information report. That was finally done at the Nowhatta police station, 36 days after Tufail’s death.

A lengthy legal contest was only beginning. The CJM, in 2011, asked the police to constitute a special investigation team (SIT) to probe the killing. The SIT’s pace was so slow that the CJM censured it. In September 2011, Ashraf approached Jammu and Kashmir High Court for speedy investigation.

The court directed the police director-­general to constitute an SIT headed by an officer of the superintendent rank and report to it within three weeks. The team eventually came with a closure report that, in December 2012, said “…all the possibility of collecting evidence in this case was explored to reach some conclusion, but SIT was not able to find any conclusive evidence.” The team, however, said it will continue a “secret search” and re-investigate the case on finding something incriminating or suspicious.

The high court trashed the report, observing that “it appears as if an attempt has been made to save certain police officials”. The bench directed that the case be reopened and handed over to the Crime Branch, which began probing the matter. In May 2015, the Crime Branch’s closure report before the trial court termed the circumstances leading to Tufail’s end “shrouded in mystery”. Ashraf, already greyed beyond his age, challenged this report; the case is pending before the trial court.

It was in 2014 the Omar administration constituted the Koul Commission. That instilled fresh hope in Ashraf. “I thought I will now get justice,” he recalls. Justice is the word he often repeats. The chit Ashraf got from the Koul panel office three weeks ago has added to his exacerbation.

Justice Koul refused talk to Outlook, while Bhat says the inquiry commission has been “categorical” in its report that Tufail was killed by policemen of Maharaj Gunj police station—and has hence recommended a CBI probe. “But, we don’t know identity of the policemen,” he adds, sitting in his office at Samandar Bagh in Lal Chowk.

In the second case, 17-year-old Umar Qayoom was beaten in Soura police station on the outskirts of Srinagar on August 20, 2010. The class-11 student died in the hospital five days later. The Koul commission has held the police personnel responsible for the boy’s end. “We have established that he was beaten by the cops and he died. We have identified the police station but not the SHO or any other personnel,” Bhat adds.

According to him, in most of the cases, the commission has held the police, the paramilitary, Border Security Force and Railway Protection Force responsible for opening fire in the absence of a senior officer and without the orders of the magistrate. “Whether or not the firing was justified, we couldn’t get any evidence of it,” Bhat says. “But we have established that law and order was managed by the police constabulary and the CRPF personnel. Not even an inspector-rank officer was with them during the duty. That makes it difficult to identify the jawans who opened fire.”

The commission insists against deployment of the CRPF, which perceives it has impunity under several central laws, to tackle law and order situation. It has also sought the removal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) that gives added authority to the military in “disturbed” areas. The Koul panel has put a caveat on it, says Bhat. “We have said ‘remove the AFSPA wherever it is not needed’.”

The Koul commission did not call any senior government official such as the IGP or DGP before it, rues Ashraf. “It didn’t even call the (then) chief minister or the home minister,” he adds. Bhat counters it: “We were not supposed to call any such politician or administrator as they were not involved in any case.”

Six years after the post-Tufail unrest, Kashmir witnessed a similar turmoil following the killing of young militant Burhan Wani on July 8. That agitation in the second half of 2016 warrants an inquiry by a judicial commission headed by a retired Supreme Court judge, according to National Conference, which is now the chief Opposition party in the border state. The ruling Peoples Democratic Party has other views. It is keener on providing ex-gratia to the families of those killed, but its coalition partner, the Bharatiya Janata Party, is objecting to it, calling it as an “incentive on terror”.

Unlike ex-CM Omar, who admits making mistakes while handling the flare-up in 2010, his successor says the summer protests of 2016 were “planned and well executed”, during which children were made shield to attack police and army camps. Mehbooba, however, says a deputy and additional superintendent of police will head a district-level SIT tasked with carrying out a “time-bound” investigation into the 2016 civilian killings. The government pegs the deaths at 76—a figure human-rights activists claim is conservative.

Parvez Imroz, a known human rights defender of the Valley, says the Koul commission is vague in its report “like all the previous ones”. According to newspaper reports, the panel “has not indicted anyone, has not named anyone expect two police stations”, he says. “It has even denied a copy of the report to the families of the victims. This has deepened the distrust Kashmiris have on the commissions.” What’s more, he says, the present government is making mockery by asking district SPs, who “are equally responsible” for the killings, to investigate the 2016 civilian killings.

As the Koul commission has recommended the government to provide Rs 10 lakh each to the families of the civilians killed in 2010, including that of Tufail, as a “moral obligation” of the state, Ashraf is seething with anger. “Tufail was born to me after our first three sons died in infa­ncy,” he points out. “I have been asking for justice and they are insulting me by talking about charity. Take my word: I will fight the case till I am alive.”