A 50-year-old alleged by the Jammu and Kashmir Police to be a self-styled divisional commander of the Hizbul Mujahideen has been acquitted in a sixth case after yet again, prosecution witnesses did not confirm police claims.
In the case in which the acquittal came last week, police had accused Ghulam Nabi alias Javed Qureshi, identified by them as a Hizbul militant, an "associate" Khursheed Ahmed of opening fire at a police search party in the forests of Marmat in Doda district in 2009, killing SPO Mohammad Ashraf. None of the prosecution witnesses supported the police version.
The witnesses whose testimony led to the acquittal of both Nabi and Khursheed included members of the police search party. A number of them told the trial court that the officers had "instructed" them what names to take, with one of them also saying that the rifle shown as seized from Nabi and Ahmed had been previously shown as seized in other FIRs.
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Additional Sessions Judge, Doda, Archana Charak acquitted Nabi and Ahmed. The testimony of the doctor who conducted the postmortem said Nabi had three bullet wounds, and was "shot from a distance of about 6 metres", adding: “It did not seem to be a case of cross-fire...”
In its order, the trial court said defects or lapses in investigation by themselves do not necessarily entitle the accused to acquittal where substantive evidence establishes guilt. However, the judge said, in this case the prosecution evidence itself suffers from "material contradictions" and there is no "reliable corroboration". "The benefit of doubt must necessarily go to the accused persons," Judge Charak said.
However, Ghulam Nabi continues to be in jail as he is facing trial in two cases filed in 2010 at Doda police station.
Nabi's wife Shama Begum says he was arrested from Dehradun for the first time 16 years ago, where he worked as a labourer. He was around 35 at the time, it fell upon 35 after that to raise their three children, between the ages of 1 and 3. She works as a cook at a private hostel, earning Rs 8,000 a month. Nabi was last home in 2025, when he was brought for an hour after his mother died.
During the inquiry, police said they found that Nabi joined the Hizbul in 1993 and many cases of murder were registered against him in Doda.
However, during final arguments in court, Nazir Ahmed, who investigated the seizure of the SLR, admitted that the weapon had been seized by them in an earlier murder case. "... no independent civilian witness has come forward. It is not safe to hold the accused guilty," the court held, acquitting Nabi on February 19, 2020.
This pattern repeats. On August 18, 2010, a party from Gohha police post was carrying out searches in Kundan Dhaar forest area of Marmat when it said it came under attack, forcing them to flee leaving behind four empty cartridges of AK-47 rifles.
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Until January 18, 2019, prosecution presented only four witnesses, all of them police personnel. Noting that the accused had been in judicial lock-up since October 2011, then Additional Sessions Judge, Doda, Madan Lal, said: "Speedy trial is the fundamental right of the accused." It also noted that none of those who deposed said the accused were involved in the offence, merely testifying to the recovery of four empty cartridges of AK-47.
The case illustrates a larger crisis in militancy prosecutions in J&K: over-reliance on police witnesses, tutored statements, and recovered weapons shown repeatedly.
Tags: #JammuKashmir #Doda #HizbulMujahideen #Acquittal #GhulamNabi #PoliceWitness #TrialCourt #AFSPA #SpeedyTrial #MilitancyCase