Asiya Jan, one of the two women who were allegedly raped and murdered in Shopian in May this year, actually died a virgin.
This verdict by All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) experts on Tuesday has given a fresh turn to the controversy over the deaths of Asiya (17) and her
sister-in-law Nelofar Jan (22).
Immediately after the bodies of Asiya and Nelofar were found on the intervening night of May 29 and 30, protests rocked Shopian district, about 50 km south of Srinagar.
Locals suspected that the women were raped and murdered by men of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). Two previous autopsies conducted by the state authorities also confirmed the suspicion.
The AIIMS doctors, who returned to Delhi from Srinagar on Tuesday, found after an eight-hour-long autopsy that Nelofar bore a deep gash on her forehead, besides smaller injuries.
“Nelofar was married and also a mother of a child. So, it is not possible to confirm or negate rape in her case,” one of the AIIMS experts said on condition of anonymity.
The AIIMS experts, however, are not ruling out drowning, as the women died while crossing a stream on their way home.
In June this year, All Party Hurriyat Conference (G) chairman Syed Ali Geelani called for a complete shutdown to protest against the deaths, bringing life in Shopian district to a standstill for 47 days until the high court promised justice.
The government appointed a commission under Justice Muzaffar Ahmad Jan to investigate the case. The Jan panel suggested that the killings were most likely the result of a family feud.
On August, the Jammu and Kashmir government decided to hand over the case to the CBI.
The bureau exhumed the bodies to get another autopsy done. A local doctor, Ghulam Qadir Khan, was present as an observer of the Majlis-e-Mashwarat (advisory council) that led the agitation in June.
Mohammad Shafi Khan, spokesperson of Majlis-e-Mashwarat, however, told HT over the phone that his organisation did not know that Asiya died a virgin. But he said, “We will wait for the report of Dr Khan in this regard.”
(With input from Jaya Shroff Bhalla in New Delhi)