Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court has sentenced a former police officer to life imprisonment for his involvement in a 2003 fidayeen attack in Kupwara district, overturning a lower court’s earlier acquittal.
A division bench comprising Justices Sanjeev Kumar and Sanjay Parihar on Saturday convicted Ghulam Rasool Wani, former Sogam station house officer (SHO), of criminal conspiracy in the attack that claimed the lives of two CRPF personnel. The court found Wani guilty of assisting a Pakistani militant in executing the assault, while upholding the acquittal of his co-accused.
Rejecting the trial court’s earlier decision, the bench stated, “We are absolutely clear that the findings of acquittal in favour of Wani were not only perverse but ignored the clinching evidence.” The court noted that Wani knew the attacker, Mohammad Ibrahim alias KhalilUllah (now deceased), and had facilitated the crime by disguising him as SOG personnel and bringing him to the scene.
The order detailed that Ibrahim, intent on killing the security personnel, was transported from Sogam Police Station to the attack site in an official police vehicle by Wani and Abdul Ahad Rather, the station’s Moharir (record keeper). However, the court found the evidence against Rather insufficient, describing the case against him as “hypothetical” and lacking proof. Proceedings against Ibrahim had ceased following his death during the attack.
