October 27, 2009
CBI’s Mission Kashmir
Manufacturing consent on Shopian rapes, murders
Anuradha Bhasin Jamwal
The CBI may
have succeeded in its mission in Shopian, that of what Noam Chomsky refers
to as manufacturing consent about non-existence of any violations in the
twin rapes of Asiya Jan and her sister-in-law Neelofar Jan. But this is
only as far as the opinion outside Jammu and Kashmir, formed by a
consistent over-drive of narration of lies, is concerned.
Within Jammu
and Kashmir, especially in Kashmir Valley, the exercise of manufacturing
consent, however, has not only met with skepticism but also renewed bout
of disappointment and erosion of already fragile confidence of the people
in institutions of the State. As Majlis-e-Mushawarat Shopian, spearheading
the agitation for justice in the Shopian rapes and murders case for the
last nearly five months, has pointed out: “The CBI appears to be
completing the unfinished business of agencies previously investigating
the crime.”
The
observation is not without basis. The previous investigators, from Justice
Jan Commission to the Special Investigation Team of Jammu and Kashmir
Police, failed to follow the more significant threads in their probes.
They instead flourished with pack of baseless stories – from drowning
theory to circulating different kinds of post mortem reports – to add to
the confusion and topped it up with an extra dose of character
assassination of the victims and their family. The CBI has only
contributed its own pack of lies and embellished one of the most complex
cases of human rights abuse in Kashmir’s recent history with more
confusion.
Evidence,
other than circumstantial evidence, may severely be lacking in the rapes
and murders of the two women, especially with fudged up forensic evidence
and botched up post mortem reports, making it difficult to sift fact from
fiction very scientifically. Such lapses, however, do not allow anyone the
privilege to conclude that no rape or murder ever took place. Infact,
sweeping remarks by investigating agencies makes their version of the
story not only unpalatable but also reveals that this is being done by
design.
The conspiracy
is too deep rooted, well planned and systematic. CBI is only a part of
that conspiracy; the investigating agency’s role, however, has been more
‘authentically’ performed at least as far its mapping on the national
scene is concerned, only because it escapes the temptation of sound just
as jarring as the previous investigating agency.
CBI’s role
becomes fishy both in the manner of its investigations and its bid to
selectively use media as a tool to further its interests, from the theory
of ‘virginity’ of one of the rape and murder victims Asiya Jan to the
possibility of drowning. In none of the statements any of the officers
have been quoted. All the reports based on such theories merely quote the
CBI sources.
The only
officially doled out statement is the one from CBI Director Ashwani Kumar,
on October 12, about abject refusal to interrogate the policemen accused
of tampering evidence and instead maintaining that focus of the
investigations is whether the FIR lodged in the case was right or wrong.
There is something decidedly weird about the obsession of the
investigators with the FIR right from the day one. Why should there be an
issue over the delay in forensic reports from Srinagar’s Forensic Science
Laboratory in the beginning of June this year, even though the formality
of FIR, which forms the preliminary basis of investigations, really does
not depend on availability of such formal reports? But that is what the
state police’s special investigating team (SIT) did.
The CBI has followed the same route, its Director talking about the
investigation pivoting around whether the FIR lodged was right or not. An
FIR is not the final investigation, it is not even the basic challan
presented in the court, which is a more formal shape of the presentation
of investigations. The shape and form of an FIR is immaterial. Then why
should it invite so much of hairsplitting by an investigating agency
touted to be the country’s most prestigious one?
Even more glaringly, like the previous investigators, the CBI has decided
to shut its eye to the suspects involved in tampering of the evidence in
the case and the cover-up thereafter. The CBI officer has maintained that
its investigators are not planning to interrogate the officers and that
this aspect of the case does not form part of the investigations.
Interestingly, the Indian intelligentsia, which so much wishes human
rights abuse to be non existent, has not even questioned the wisdom behind
this ‘conclusion’ which at best appears to bail out the culprits, atleast
guilty of tampering evidence. Does the CBI deem them innocent and does
everybody else fall for that story as blindly as the blind murders of the
two women after their rapes. It doesn’t take an exceptionally high IQ to
realize that tampering of evidence is not done without design. Taking all
the trouble to wash off the blood stains from the spot where the bodies
were recovered,
wiping off wheel tracks till the place are acts that did not spring from
complacency. They were obviously aimed at concealing the truth and the
identity of the culprits. That the administrative higher ups would go an
extra mile in further botching up facts – SIT with its character
assassination theory, the top brass of police including the CID with its
multiple circulation of different and contradictory post mortem reports,
some that completely obliterated the part about floating test that ruled
out drowning as a possibility.
The authenticity of some of the medical reports may also be on shaky
ground, especially after CBI’s revelation that the second team of doctors
had given in fake vaginal swab slides. This version of CBI’s account may
be more credible but appears to be only a fragment of the entire story of
how medical tests and post mortem were conducted. It doesn’t tell us why
the doctors did what they did. It also omits the details about doctors
being asked by Director Health Services to personally deliver the samples
at FSL Srinagar, even though that is not the normal procedure. There is
obviously much more that is fishy in the story than CBI’s attempt to
simply look for scapegoats.
A news report
datelined Delhi on October 9, relying on a CBI source, indication of yet
another devious bid to plant untruths, maintains, “Tests conducted on the
exhumed bodies of two Shopian women whose deaths sparked off protests
across the Valley amid allegations that they were raped and murdered are
said to be indicative of “death by drowning”. Forensic experts are learnt
to have verbally conveyed their findings to the CBI which is now probing
the case.” However, in yet another report, a day previous to that, again
filed from Delhi and quoting some CBI sources, states, “The CBI rejected
doctors’ reports that one of the two women, who were allegedly raped and
murdered in Shopian, was not raped……. According to agency sources,
forensic reports to establish rape are yet to come.”
The reports
are quite similar to the previous ones that CBI selectively leaked out to
the media before and after the exhumation of bodies. The ‘broken hymen’
theory, which has not even been substantiated by making public the
preliminary report of the doctors, and the interpretation of ‘Asiya’s
virginity’ all appear to be part of CBI’s mission in Kashmir this time.
The move in no way appears any different from the jarring notes of the
SIT-Justice Jan Commission which earlier flung mud at the victims and
their family, making sweeping remarks about their character.
CBI only does
the same with a little more sophistication. But subtlety does not shrink
the shrillness of the motive.
(Anuradha Bhasin Jamwal is executive editor of ‘Kashmir Times’ and a
human rights activist. She is a member of the Women’s Initiative for
Justice in Shopian rapes, murders.)