SRINAGAR, India - Seven policemen were charged Wednesday with murdering a man and claiming he was an Islamic militant, police said, the first charges in an alleged plot by officers to kill innocent people and earn rewards.
The charges were the first brought against any police for targeting civilians since the start of an Islamic insurgency that has left tens of thousands of civilians dead in Indian Kashmir](http://search.news.yahoo.com/search/news/?p=Kashmir) since 1989.
“The accused have been charged with criminal conspiracy, abduction, murder and destruction of evidence,” said Farooq Ahmed, the senior police officer heading the investigation into the killings.
Authorities earlier this year began investigating reports that police had been killing civilians in staged gunbattles and then saying those slain were militants so they could claim substantial rewards and earn promotions.
The accusations have rocked the predominantly Muslim territory, where anti-India sentiment runs deep and people have for years complained that innocent civilians were being killed by security forces.
The seven officers charged Wednesday were allegedly involved in the death of Abdur Rahman Padder, a 35-year-old carpenter, who disappeared from Srinagar, the Himalayan region’s main city, on Dec. 8. He was allegedly killed by police later that evening.
At the time, police identified Padder as Abu Hafiz of Pakistan and said he was a member of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, one of the main militant groups in Kashmir. Officials maintained that he had been slain in a shoot-out with officers in the small town of Ganderbal, about 12 miles northeast of Srinagar, and that an assault rifle and grenade had been recovered from his body.
Soon after, Padder’s father filed a missing person’s report and officers investigating the case traced the dead man’s missing mobile to a police officer. Authorities then exhumed Padder’s body and used DNA tests to confirm his identity, casting doubt on the official account of his death.
Since the revelations surrounding Padder’s death have become public, the bodies of at least four other civilians believed to have been killed in similar circumstances have been exhumed. The results of those investigations are still pending.
The seven police charged Tuesday in connection with Padder’s death include two senior officers.
“The killers of my husband should be hanged,” said Padder’s wife, Muneera, after hearing the seven would be charged with murder, a capital offense. She spoke from the court in Srinagar where the charges were announced.
Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan, but claimed by both, and the two countries have fought two wars over the territory since they gained independence from Britain in 1947.
India accuses Pakistan of providing material and training to the Islamic militants, who have been fighting to make Kashmir independent or have the part controlled by overwhelmingly Hindu India merged with Muslim Pakistan.
About 68,000 people, most of them civilians, have been killed since the start of the insurgency.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070228/ap_on_re_as/kashmir_deaths_in_custody
