Srinagar: International Forum for Justice/Human Rights Forum on Saturday held a protest demonstration here on 25th anniversary of Sopore massacre. Over 50 people were killed in the massacre by paramilitary Border Security Forces.
Mohammad Ahsan Untoo, chairman of the rights group, said: “We came here to protest and demand justice. The justice should be given to the families who have lost everything in this incident. We want culprits should be punishment”.
As per figures from various sources, he said, around 120 houses and 350 shops besides Women’s Degree College and Samad Talkies were burnt.
The family which suffered the highest number of casualties was Shalla family of Shalpora. Four of its members were killed.
“When police lodged the FIR, for a year it was saying first we will wait for CBI enquiry and then some other enquiries and at the end they closed the file.”
He said in 2012 the case was re-opened as some new facts came to fore.
Names of victims that figure out in CBI investigation were only 33, rest didn’t figure out in the investigation, he said.
Eyewitness recalls it was a chilly morning of 6th January 1993 and a small group of 3-4 militants attacked a platoon of Border Security Force (BSF) at Baba Yousf Lane, resulting in killing of one trooper. One militant had snatched a service riffle from a trooper.
After half an hour, the BSF soldiers came out of their barracks and restored to indiscriminate firing upon the people and later sprinkled the gun powder on the entire Sopore market and set it ablaze.
Even fire fighters were not allowed to dousing off the flames and were held at “gun point”. “We had to wait for three hours to start rescue operations. The troopers ensured maximum numbers of civilians are killed,” Untoo quoted firefighters having told the civilians.
