The Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh High Court has observed that there was not enough evidence to prove that jawans of the Border Security Forces (BSF) opened fire deliberately at an Army patrol, which resulted in the death of three soldiers in 1999 in Jammu .
“Though conviction can be sustained on the basis of sole testimony of a witness, however, conviction cannot be sustained on the basis of suspicions, conjectures or surmises. The sole testimony of the injured [Army jawan] has not been corroborated by any prosecution witness and does not inspire confidence to sustain conviction,” a High Court double Bench, comprising justices Rajesh Sekhri and Sanjav Dhar, held.
The incident took place during the intervening night of July 16-17, 1999 when an Army patrol party, headed by Lt. Sanjiv Dahiya, was on patrol towards a forward post. The Army patrol came under fire from BSF personnel on duty at the bunker, which left three Army personnel dead and one injured.
The incident was, at first, treated as an operational accidental death. However, the injured jawan, Sepoy Keshav Singh, disclosed that the Army patrol had informed the BSF Pargal Post and left towards Malabela Post.
“The party reached the BSF bunker and repeatedly blinked the torch as a mode of signal, but there was no response. Lt. Sanjiv Dahiya went upstairs and found BSF personnel sleeping. He admonished them and informed them that the patrol party was moving towards Malabela Post,” the injured Army jawan claimed.
The Army jawan alleged that the BSF personnels opened “indiscriminate fire upon the patrol party, killing Lt. Dahiya, Naik Jai Narain Tripathi, Sepoy Data Ram”. The jawan’s statement resulted in lodging of a First Information Report and the BSF jawans were charge-sheeted.
However, the court was informed about a number of discrepancies in the statement of the Army jawan. “Staggering circumstance to shake the credibility of the prosecution case is that though Mr. Singh is stated to have sustained serious bullet injuries and was hospitalised for the same, however, prosecution has failed to produce any evidence in this respect,” the court was told.
It was also highlighted that the staff court of enquiry, before registration of the present case by the police, had already concluded that “present incident had taken place due to lack of coordination of patrolling communication, failure between 414 Battalion BSF and 5 Rajput of Army, as it is the case of mistaken identity and nobody was to be blamed”.
