Srinagar: A special investigation team of police Tuesday made public its “findings” in the Hyderpora ‘encounter’ public, saying that there is ample evidence to suggest the encounter took place in a ‘proper manner’.
The SIT citing the investigation report said that a foreign militant alongside a youth from Ramban had been staying and using the office chamber of Dr Mudasir Gul as a “hide-out”, to carry out their activities – including the Jamalatta attack in Safakadal.
Addressing a presser here, Special Investigation Team head DIG Sujit Kumar, flanked by DGP Dilbagh Singh and other officers, said that as per the docket received from 2 RR, an encounter took place on 15 November 2021 inside a building at Hyderpora in which CRPF’s QRT and Srinagar Police’s SOG and army were part of, in a ‘proper manner’.
“Initially the investigation was taken up by SDPO Saddar until on 16th (Nov) an SIT was constituted by IGP for a free and fair investigation. Once the SIT took over the case, we took into consideration the seized items which included 2 pistols, 4 magazines, bullets and other things which were recovered from the site”, the police officer said adding he himself went there for site inspection to ‘create a confidence’ and accordingly a site inspection a layout plan of the building was drafted.
“The militant had escaped upto 83 fts, when the security forces retaliated against him.” Pointing towards layout – he says at the first floor, “we first come across two toilets (washrooms) Toilet 1 Toilet 2, close to it is a shop ‘IT Solutions’ and adjacent to it is another shop which belonged to Altaf Bhat, which he kept closed where he would keep some hardware items,” he said, adding, “And the room next to was, he (Altaf) had given to Dr. Mudasir Gull, but there was some construction work going on it, some of his partner had started some new business and the room after it was Dr. Mudasir Gull’s own office chamber and there was another small chamber, where Amir (Magray) was sheltering.”
Once one goes up from the stairs, he said there is an attic where there is a hall and in the middle of this hall, “we found the body of Dr. Mudasir Gull”. On both sides of the attic there are two big rooms, where there are many clothes and other things, he continued.
He said SIT reached some important witnesses, who were eyewitnesses to the incident, and some linkages took it to Bandipora and “we were also able to find witnesses from Bandipora, who helped us a lot in this case.”
“First of all let me make mention of witnesses from Srinagar – In Srinagar on 14 November, at around 6 in the evening when an attack took place on our zonal SP’s PSOs. In that attack the jawan who was hit by the bullet and survived and the other colleague who closely watched the militant, was the first to identify that the militant killed in Hydepora, he was the same militant who had earlier targeted the PSO jawan, he clearly identified him (slain militant) before magistrate.”
“After that three witnesses, Protected Witness A, Protected Witness B, Protected Witness C, who have had a great affiliation with Dr. Mudasir Gul, they have accepted the thing and have given a statement that in that building, the same individual was living there for last few months, he (militant) would roam and move around the room, used to remain silent usually but would talk a lot on his mobile phone and his language was neither Kashmiri nor Dogri. These people took him as an outsider on the basis of his language. They (PW) even saw the militant many a times roaming in the car of Dr. Mudasir Gull in Srinagar”, he said.
“Apart from them, the independent witnesses we do have, who were available at the site during the operation, have testified that police have in no way misbehaved with them – all these audio, video statements are with us.”
He said on 14 November evening, Amir returned to the same building as owned by Dr. Mudasir Gull after the Jamalata attack along with the foreign militant.
“Army and police cordoned off the building by 5 A.M. All the people were evacuated and kept at a place and subsequent first search of the building was made by a police party led by SHO at around 5:29 AM, two times. The Army and SOG also searched the building two times. At around 6, when Amir said that the doors of two rooms are closed – he was with a torch while his phone was not with him, his phone was later on found from the militant killed, despite asked repeated times, he told his phone is in the room (closed) – when asked to whom the rooms’ belonged to, he said this is mine and there was nothing in it, I will show it to you. Thereafter you can see (referring to the layout) three persons entering which includes Dr. Mudasir Gul and also enters his call centre, he is accompanied by Altaf Bhat, they come out of the building at around 6:25,” he said, adding, “At around 6:36 the encounter breaks out, a person can been seen running who is the militant Bilal Bhai, who first made a human shield up to door and then opened fire and came out and was subsequently killed.”
After the first incident of firing, he said, Dr Mudasir Gull didn’t come out and the whole of the building was searched through dark-mounted cameras. The body of Dr. Mudasir Gull was found in the attic, at the top where the forces didn’t even shot a single bullet and didn’t even go there. “Around his body were found shells of 9mm pistol bullets. Dark camera has a time print (referring to layout), of 6:25 and the encounter broke out at 6:36, as per DVR this is 13 minutes after ‘our time’. ”In the meanwhile announcements were made as to why despite 10 minutes he is not coming down. “And after that when our party reached near the door, the fire was opened from the other side.”
He said that around 8-10 bottles of codeine were found from the attic. “Report is that codeine bottles were brought to the building and militants before any occurrence would consume these codeine bottles. This building is where there is no clinic and only meant for real estate business, why were there codeine bottles,” he said, adding, “We also recovered the keys of the locks on doors. There was half eaten food in the attic of the building – used by the foreign militant as a hideout, about which even security forces had no information.” On the same table are the glasses of Mudasir Gul, which he wore while entering to search the building. “His glasses were not found with his body but on the table inside which means he without informing anybody taken risk had himself went up to the room.”
No document could be found despite police requesting his business partners could be made available to police. “Ami’s sister claimed that she resided in the hidden room in the attic where suspicious material was recovered, snow gloves, snow shoes, but that much material found there could not have been of two people, definitely it (room) was misused as a hideout. As concluded by the doctors, all the four deaths took place of bullet injuries.”
A subsidiary question was asked by SIT to doctors as if there was any other injury except for bullet injury like blunt injury, the doctors in their response said that it was true there were laceration injuries because of falling down or other circumstances, but there was no blunt injury.
“Two accused in the Jamalatta incident were arrested by police, who accepted and gave their confessional statement that they were being guided through social media through Telegram, to reside a Pakistani militant in Srinagar and to take him to different places in Srinagar and provide logistics.”
They accepted that in Jamhallata they took the same militant in the evening and they identified him as the same militant who was killed in the Hyderpora encounter. “We have even recovered the scooty on which they had taken him (militant) to Jamalatta.” (GNS)
