Four Months Since Sopore Custodial Death, Inquiry ‘Delayed…

Barramula: Even as more than four months have passed since the death in police custody of a 26-year-old youth in north Kashmir’s Sopore, the inquiry officer is yet to file the report which he was tasked to complete in twenty days.

Irfan Dar was picked up by the Sopore unit of Special Operations Group (SOG), the police’s anti-militancy wing, from his shop at 12:33 pm on 15 September last year. He was dead the next morning.

Soon after the allegation of custodial killing, the administration appointed Additional District Magistrate, Baramulla, Mohammad Ahsaan Mir to conduct a magisterial inquiry to “ascertain the causes and circumstances leading to the death” of Dar. The inquiry officer was asked to submit his report within a period of twenty days which ended in October.

Mir told The Kashmir Walla the inquiry got delayed till now due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “The inquiry report will go to the government. Due to COVID-19, there were a lot of restrictions so it was delayed. It will take us about a week to file the inquiry report,” the official said.

Mir didn’t share further detail, saying “it would hamper the process”.