The victim families from South Kashmir’s Kokarnag town Monday appealed the Court not to grant the bail to Farooq Ahmed Padroo, former SOG man accused of killing at least five innocent men in fake encounters for rewards and promotions.Pertinently, Farooq Padroo has been languishing in jail since 2007. Families and neighbors of three fake encounter victims—Abdur Rehman Padder, a carpenter, Nazir Ahmed Daca, a Perfumer and Ali Muhammad Padder, a clothseller-all residents of Kokernag Islamabad on Saturday assembled here in Press Enclave Srinagar and staged a protest appealing the court not to grant bail to the killer Farooq Padroo. “The butcher Farooq Padroo has applied for bail through his Counsel. He has requested the Court to grant him bail as the marriage of his daughter is scheduled to take place in coming days. We request to Honorable Court to reject his bail plea as he is the killer of innocent people. All those who were killed by him in fake encounters too had children and families. He doesn’t deserve mercy,” the families of the victims told CNS.Earlier, the accomplices of the killer Padroo used to harass us. They even tried to force us stop fighting the case in the court of law but these cheap tactics strengthened our resolve to seek stringent punishment against the accused,” said family members of victim carpenter Abdul Rehman. Abdur Rehman, father of five children was picked by the SOG allegedly on instance of Farooq Padroo and later killed him in a fake encounter at Waskoora Ganderbal.Padroo according to his family members was killed in a fake encounter on the outskirts of Ganderbal and later labeled as a militant from Multan-Pakistan affiliated with Lashkar-e-Toiba. The victim carpenter had went missing from Batmaloo bus stand on December 8, 2006 reportedly after he was taken to Waskoora in Ganderbal district during the night where he was killed allegedly in a fake encounter by the Special Operation Group (SOG) posted in Ganderbal and Sumbal camps.
A body with mutilated face was later recovered from the spot whom the SOG had dubbed as a Lashkar-e-Toiba militant, Abu Hafiz of Multan Pakistan besides claiming recovery of some ammunition from the encounter site. After the racket got cracked by the police, the DNA taken from the body of Padroo exhumed in Ganderbal matched with that of his relatives in Larnoo Kokernag, confirming that the gunned down ‘foreign militant’ was not from Pakistan but an abducted carpenter. Investigation conducted later on revealed the role of accused Farooq Padroo and others in gunning down at least five innocent victims from South Kashmir.round 11 police personnel from SOG were arrested in the case. On April 18, 2007, the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of police, led by the then SP Srinagar (East) Anand Jain presented charge sheet against four army personnel and five policemen in the enforced disappearance case of another victims Ghulam Nabi Wani whose family was also part of the Monday protest in Press Enclave.The charge sheet was filed before the Chief Judicial Magistrate Bandipora. The accused included the then SSP Ganderbal Hans Raj Parihar, his deputy Bahadur Ram, the then ASI Farooq Gudoo, driver Farooq Ahmad Padro and Constable Bhansi Lal. The four accused army personnel included 13 RR Colonel Vikram Singh, Major Naveen Yadaw, Hawaldar K Mohandas and Naik Manoj Singh.When Court can execute Muhammad Afzal Guroo without proving his role in any murder case, why can’t it hang these killers, whose role has been established the Special Investigation Team constituted by the Government itself,” the victim families said adding that it will be a grave injustice towards the innocent slain men and their families, if court grants Farooq Padro bail. (CNS)