Jammu and Kashmir govt terminates two doctors for fabricating evidence in 2009 Shopian ‘rape’ case

The case brought Kashmir to a standstill for 42 days. Seven civilians lost their lives and 103 were injured during the protests that ensued.

More than 14-years after the alleged rape and murder of two women in Shopian, Jammu and Kashmir government terminated two doctors from service for working with Pakistan and hatching a conspiracy to falsify the post-mortem report of the victims.

On May 29, 2009 Asiya and her sister-in-law Neelofar went missing from their orchard in south Kashmir’s Shopian district. Next day morning, their bodies were found, both one kilometre apart, under mysterious circumstances, leading to allegations that they were raped and murdered by security personnel.

The case brought Kashmir to a standstill for 42 days. Seven civilians lost their lives and 103 were injured during these protests while 29 police personnel and six paramilitary personnel also suffered injuries. The situation improved only after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) started investigating the matter. During the probe, it was found that the two women were never raped.

Dr Nighat Chiloo, who conducted the post-mortem of the victims, had reportedly told investigators that she submitted her own vaginal swab samples instead of one of the victim's.

“J&K govt has terminated Dr Bilal Ahmad Dalal and Dr Nighat Shaheen Chilloo from the service for actively working with Pakistan and hatching a conspiracy with its assets within Kashmir to falsify the post-mortem report of Asiya and Neelofar, who had unfortunately died by accidental drowning on 29th May 2009,” an official statement said.

The dossier of Dr Chiloo. prepared by J&K police, reads that Dr Chiloo has been found to be a key player in the adversary’s (Pakistan’s) campaign to shape the narrative in its favour in J&K, “even if it meant creating and propagating false and distorted accounts of incidents and events.”

“It is open knowledge that the terrorist-secessionist networks, among many lines of false narratives, had prioritised the item of ‘rape as a war weapon’ employed by the Indian State against Kashmiris,” it said and added that Dr Chiloo, in this context, has played a primary role in furthering this agenda item of the terrorist-secessionist networks by falsely accusing the security forces of 'rape and murder' following the tragic deaths due to drowning of two women in Shopian in 2009.

“The Shopian episode has emerged to be a classic textbook case study of how Pakistan and its proxies in J&K mobilized their deep assets within several societal and governmental institutions to fabricate a completely false story, give credence to the falsehood by creating false evidence including a totally bogus post-mortem, going to the extent of replacing biological samples to falsely implicate completely innocent police officers and thereby subvert and obstruct the justice system of a proportion that is unprecedented in the annals of criminal justice system. Dr. Nighat among others was the lynchpin of this subversion and obstruction of justice,” it added.