CBI declines to probe Shopian incident

The Jammu and Kashmir government’s Shopian headache just got worse. The state had decided to hand over the case of rape and murder of two women in Shopian to the CBI after it was found that DNA samples of the victims might had been tampered with. But now a reluctant CBI says it is difficult for them to investigate the case.

The police recovered bodies of Asiya, 17, and her sister-in-law Neelofar Jan, 22, from a stream in Shopian on May 30, leading to a state-wide agitation, often violent, against the government and security agencies in Kashmir valley.

The state government sent DNA samples of the victims to a forensic lab in Delhi but it emerged that the samples belonged to women other than the victims.

“We have informed the state government that it would be difficult for the agency to take over the case. We would need cooperation of witnesses, general public and relatives of the deceased women,” the CBI spokesperson said.

The Shopian incident was raised in the Jammu and Kashmir assembly and the opposition parties blamed the government for not acting tough against the criminals.
The political protesters were furious with the state government for mishandling the case and even asked chief minister Omar Abdullah to resign.