SRINAGAR, India, June 7, (Agencies): The Indian army suspended two officers after police blamed them for the killings of three Kashmiri civilians in a staged gunbattle, a top army official said Sunday.
The civilian killings more than a month ago raised doubts about military claims of gunfights between Indian security forces and suspected rebels fighting for Kashmir’s independence from India or its merger with neighboring Pakistan since 1989, said Omar Abdullah, the top elected Indian official in the region.
Their families say the three men disappeared three days before the army announced April 30 that it killed three suspected rebels who had crossed into the Indian portion of Kashmir from Pakistan near the heavily militarized cease-fire line dividing Kashmir between the countries.
The army also claimed it seized five assault rifles and ammunition from the men.
Last week, police exhumed the three bodies the army had buried in a remote village graveyard.
Farooq Ahmed, a top police officer in Kashmir, confirmed that the bodies belonged to the missing villagers. Police arrested one army soldier, a former special police officer and a civilian for luring the three to work as laborers for the military, Ahmed said.
The killings of civilians on mere suspicion or in staged gunbattles have become a major embarrassment for Indian authorities who have faced massive street protests by Kashmiris.
More than 68,000 people, most of them civilians, have been killed in the insurgency and subsequent Indian crackdown since 1989.
The two army officers were removed from their command last week pending an inquiry, a top Indian army officer said Sunday on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to reporters.
The suspended officers were yet to be handed over to police for questioning. In the past, the army has justified its actions on the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, or AFSPA, which authorizes soldiers to shoot and kill anyone on mere suspicion.
Meanwhile, Indian troops have been “strictly instructed” to respect human rights in Kashmir, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Monday on a visit to the disputed region.
Singh arrived in the summer Kashmiri capital of Srinagar on a two-day visit to review the security situation and inspect development projects. He is also to hold meetings with pro-India politicians.
Hardline separatists called a general strike to protest against Singh’s visit, which comes amid heightened tensions since the killing of three Muslims in April by the military.
The strike closed shops, schools, offices and banks in Srinagar and other towns in the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley.
“The security forces in Jammu and Kashmir have been strictly instructed to respect human rights of the civilians,” Singh told a university conference.
“We will act to remove any deficiency in the implementation of those instructions,” he said to applause from a packed audience.