Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah Thursday hailed the army’s decision to sentence seven soldiers to life imprisonment for staging a fake gun battle that killed three civilians.
“The army has handed out life sentences to seven, including the CO (commanding officer), in the Machil fake encounter case of 2010. This is indeed a welcome step,” he said on Twitter. The seven soldiers were identified as then commanding officer Colonel D.K. Pathania, Captain Upender Singh, Subedar Satbir Singh, Havaldar Bir Singh, Sepoy Chandraban, Sepoy Nagendra Singh and Sepoy Narender Singh.
In another tweet, the chief minister said: “This is a watershed moment. No one in Kashmir ever believed that justice would be done in such cases.(IANS)
