Shopian firing: Centre files plea in Supreme Court to quash FIR against Major Aditya Kumar
In the FIR, Kumar has only been mentioned as the Army officer who had led the police convoy, and not as an accused, the government said.
The Centre on Friday filed a petition in the Supreme Court asking for the FIR filed against Major Aditya Kumar to be quashed.
Kumar has only been mentioned as the Army officer who had led the police convoy in Shopian in the FIR, and not as an accused, the Centre said, according to The Times of India.
Advocate Aishwarya Bhati, who filed the petition on behalf of Kumar’s father, Lieutenant Colonel Karamveer Singh, confirmed to ANI that the Centre has filed a plea challenging the FIR.
The Jammu and Kashmir Police had filed the FIR against Kumar after three civilians were killed in an Army firing in Kashmir’s Shopian district in January. Kumar was leading a convoy of the 10 Garhwal Rifles.
The soldiers had asked for a black flag with Islamic inscriptions in Shopian’s Ganowpara village to be taken down. Clashes erupted after the villagers refused. Protesters pelted the Army convoy with stones, and the three men were killed after the Army opened fire on the mob.
The Jammu and Kashmir Police filed a case against the Army unit, while the Army filed a counter FIR claiming the protesters had provoked the soldiers “to the ultimate”.
On March 5, a Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud, while hearing a petition filed by Kumar’s father , asked the state government to not start an investigation against Kumar. “After all, it is a case of an Army officer, not an ordinary criminal,” the chief justice had said.
On February 12, the court had restrained the police from taking any coercive steps against Kumar.