• Mohammad Yaqoob Wagay alias Chatti Guru, a local milkman, was picked up a few days after the March 20, 2000 Chittisinghpora massacre by the police for allegedly “guiding” the killers to the village. Union Home Secretary Kamal Pandey announced his arrest in New Delhi and the police and RR claimed that based on Wagay’s “leads”, they had killed five Lashkar terrorists

• Nine months later, Anantnag Police admitted that the police had no corroborative evidence to chargesheet Wagay and that they have reduced the charge from multiple murder to “trying to breach peace (CrPC 107/151)”

• Once the CBI established that the five killed in the joint police-RR operation were actually civilians, the question is: who picked up the civilians? The J&K Police itself established that a Maruti van was used to ferry one of the victims, Zahoor Ahmad Dal, from Anantnag.

This van was a seized vehicle, in the custody of the police.

Anantnag SSP during encounter gets clean chit, new posting

NEW DELHI: After remaining under suspension for three years in connection with the Pathribal killings, Farooq Khan was posted last week to Rajouri as SSP. An IPS officer of the 1994 batch, Khan received a clean chit from CBI last year but the Mufti Sayeed government refused to to reinstate him.

—PTI