Kathua: No breakthrough in probe into mysterious deaths, disappearances

Three days after the bodies of three cousins were recovered from a river (some accounts say waterfall) in the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir's Kathua, there is no clue about who killed them and why. Union minister Jitendra Singh, however, asserted that the three cousins — the youngest merely 14 — who had gone to attend a wedding were killed by militants.

J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah will not hazard a guess and would rather wait until the investigation points to militant involvement. The ‘shocked and saddened’ lieutenant-general of J&K has ordered a ‘thorough and transparent’ investigation, while opposition PDP (Peoples' Democratic Party) chief and former CM Mehbooba Mufti finds the death of ‘nearly a dozen civilians', both Muslim and Hindu, in Kathua deeply alarming.

“…the police seem more focused on extracting false confessions from victims like Makhan Din while the real perpetrators are still at large. Approximately 30 individuals have been charged till date, under the PSA or UAPA, often with scant or no evidence. There are indications that certain disruptive elements possibly operating both within & across the border may be stoking communal tensions in this sensitive border district,” Mufti posted on X.

As protests erupted in Jammu and people demanded to know what was being done to deal with militancy, CM Abdullah wondered why authorities stopped deputy CM Surinder Kumar Chaudhary from calling on the victims’ families.

A definite attempt was made to politicise the killings when the police allowed BJP legislators and the leader of the opposition in the Assembly, Sunil Kumar Sharma of the BJP, to go ahead and call on the bereaved families.

While Deen Mohammad (15) and his cousin Rehmat Ali (12) have been missing from Kathua's Bilawal area since 27 February, the bodies of Varun Singh (15) and his uncles Yogesh Singh (32) and Darshan Singh (40) were recovered from a waterfall in the remote Malhar area of Kathua on Saturday, 8 March, three days after they went missing from a wedding celebration.

Last month, the bodies of two other people — Shamsher (37) and Roshan (45) — were found in Kohag village, with post-mortem reports indicating strangulation.

The circumstances surrounding these deaths are under investigation by the police, the chief minister told the assembly. "What happened, how it happened and why it happened is a matter of investigation which is going on. Discussing it in the House will not be appropriate. An MLA (Rameshwar Singh) wanted to go and meet families of the deceased, and what happened to him is known to everyone. He did not go there with political intent, and yet he was manhandled," Abdullah said.

"Attempts are being made to give a political colour (to the incidents). I am surprised that leader of the opposition Sunil Sharma was allowed to visit the bereaved families but deputy CM Surinder Choudhary and an independent MLA were stopped.

"I spoke to the deputy CM on Sunday morning as he had planned to visit Kathua and informed the administration about his programme. But police deployment outside his residence was increased on Sunday, and he was told that his visit was not appropriate at this juncture,” Abdullah said.

The CM also said he told Choudhary to speak to the Jammu zone inspector-general of police, but the officer was busy with the visit of the Union home secretary. He then spoke to the Kathua senior superintendent of police who told him the situation was tense and that he should wait for a few days, Abdullah said.

News agencies quoted Sharma as saying outside the assembly that he was constantly in touch with Union home minister Amit Shah and had visited the area to assure the people on behalf of the home minister.

Remarkably, neither the CM nor the deputy CM, or for that matter the leader of the opposition, spoke to L-G Manoj Sinha, who is practically heading the administration and the police. Are they not on talking terms? Can’t they pick up the phone and speak to the L-G?

Equally significantly, the inspector-general of police of the Jammu division had no time to speak to the deputy CM while the leader of the opposition was in constant touch with the Union home minister or his office.

Meanwhile, the mystery surrounding the deaths is yet to be unravelled as of the afternoon of Tuesday, 11 March.