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Shopian Double Rape And Murder : Activists’ Gift To CBI,
Sheets For Next Cover-Up

By KTNS

15 December, 2010
Kashmir Times

NEW DELHI, Dec 13: Tired of trying to seek justice through the usual channels about 100 women and men from women’s groups, students groups, democratic rights as well as concerned individuals gathered near the CBI Headquarters in Delhi today to gift the CBI some more bedsheets for their next cover-ups. Peppered with signatures and messages like Gift For Your Next Cover-Up! CBI Investigate Yourself! Justice For Asiya And Neelofar! Cover-Up Bureau Of Investigation Not Central Bureau Of Investigation!, each sheet was a reminder that from Delhi to Jammu and Kashmir, Tamil Nadu to Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh the voices demanding justice in Shopian are still rising.

December 13, 2010 marks one year of the report filed by the CBI on the double rape and murder of two young women, Asiya and Neelofar in Shopian. The report blatantly covers-up the crime, acquits responsible officials and indicts those who dare to speak out against the injustice, the women activists maintained.

Also in the gathering was the father of Neelofar - Sayed Abdul Hai, her husband - Shakeel Ahmed and her three year old son - Suzain who had come all the way from Shopian to express their anger and frustration with the ‘findings’ of the CBI.

The delegation met with the Director of the CBI, Mr Singh, and gifted him scores of bedsheets with hundreds of endorsements from all over the country demanding a fresh investigation into the case. The Director, while accepting our sheets, the memorandum, critiques and the report of the Independent Women’s Initiative for Justice, said he would look into the matter but refused to give a timeframe in which he would do so.

The activists demanded an immediate re-opening of the case, and a commitment that as the premier investigating agency of the country, the CBI, and the government will commit themselves to greater course of justice in cases, especially those of sexual violence.

“It is clear that the CBI, the country’s leading investigative agency has made a report to suit the political exigencies of the extant governments, whether at State or Union level, and made a mockery of the due rights guaranteed in the democratic republic of India. Hence the Cover-up Campaign,” the activists maintained.

They maintained that through today’s action they wanted the Home Ministry and the CBI to be aware that “we continue to demand justice for Neelofar and Asiya, for all women of Jammu & Kashmir and for all women of India, especially in instances of sexual violence against women which are increasing either by, or in collusion with, the forces of the state.”

The Women against Sexual Violence and State repression (WSS), the group that had organised this unique form of protest, maintained that it is committed to following up the case and is demanding a reply from the CBI within a month.

It may be recalled that on the morning of 30 May, 2009, Asiya Jaan and her sister-in-law Neelofar Jaan were found dead on the banks of Rambiara Nullah in Shopian, Kashmir.

The police did little, refusing to even register the case for five days. Two postmortems conducted immediately there after stated that the women were raped and murdered. Even as Shopian town observed a 45-day long bandh, the people of Kashmir put aside all other political demands to join this agitation. Several groups from Jammu also lent solidarity.

Justice Jan Commission appointed by the Chief Minister indicted the police. The High Court also stated that the police were either implicated in the crime or were shielding the culprits. Amidst the failure of the local police and political pronouncements of the Union Home Minister giving a clean chit to the armed forces before the Parliament, the case was handed over to the CBI on September 17, 2009.

The CBI, built an extra-judicial case and used the media extensively to make all earlier investigations in the case seem motivated or incompetent. Some of the news leaks were simply fantastic – like finding Asiya’s hymen intact four months after she was buried and hence denying the rape of both women!

The CBI also concluded that both adult women had died from ‘accidental drowning’ in a nullah that with just six inches of water! It filed supplementary charge-sheets against the State prosecutors, Government doctors, advocates for the complainant, advocates demanding justice and the family members of the women calling them separatists.

The CBI report also states that since there was no crime the implicated and suspended policemen were innocent.

The report does not explain how the bodies of the two women were invisible to the search party the whole night and appeared suddenly at dawn, how these young women drowned in a shallow nullah where no deaths have taken place nor explained eyewitness accounts that Neelofar’s body was wet only from one side when she was found.

Several of the women activists present in today’s even have been following this case from the very start. A demonstration demanding justice was held in Delhi in mid- June, 2009 followed by a fact-finding in August, 2009. A press conference on the findings was held prior to the submission of CBI’s final report to the Courts in December, 2009. In May, 2010, with no justice in sight, they wrote an open letter to the Chief Justice of India, to the National Commission for Women and to the National Human Rights Commission which was endorsed by more than forty organizations from the whole country.