Suspended CMO’s clinic sealed by Pulwama Auqaf, Police
Place of doctor’s rape on woman identified as religious property

Ahmed Ali Fayyaz

SRINAGAR, Mar 22: Auqaf Committee of Pulwama township in South Kashmir today sealed the building which had been allegedly used by a doctor to commit rape on a woman. However, Police swiftly swung into action and put its own seal on the room that used to be the suspended Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Dr Ghulam Sofi’s clinic until recently.

Informed sources in south Kashmir told Early Times that after two days of investigation, Pulwama Police succeeded in identifying the place where the suspended CMO Dr Ghulam Qadir Sofi had allegedly committed rape on a woman that had been recorded by unidentified persons on a mobile phone and later circulated in the Valley. Sources said that Police conducted inspection of at least three particular spots, including CMO’s office and District Hospital of Pulwama, but ultimately Dr Sofi’s clinic, situated on the first floor of a building owned by the local Auqaf, at Rajpora Chowk in the township matched with the video clip that has been seized by Police.

Even before Police would take further action, members of the local Auqaf Committee, followed by a large number of residents, sealed the building and put their locks on the clinic.

SSP Pulwama, Syed Kifayat Haider, said that Police immediately swung into action and made it clear to the people that taking the clinic into custody and making the investigation were the job of Police in which there was no room for such civilian action. He said that members of the local Auqaf and the residents cooperated with Police which later sealed the clinic. He said that Police had registered the criminal case (rape) under section 376 (D) and the investigation was underway. He said that efforts were underway to identify and interrogate the woman exploited as well as the people who made video of the criminal act. He said that Police were questioning the doctor for few hours of the day but clarified that he had not been formally arrested as sufficient material evidence to take such action was not available as of now.

Residents said that there was a lot of anger against the doctor as well as some politicians, including a Member of Parliament, who were allegedly trying to shield the criminals. “Be it PDP, National Conference or Hurriyat, all of them are selective in such matters. They have been all exposed by their criminal silence in this matter. Only an Independent MLA has shown some concern in the Assembly”, complained one of the members of Pulwama Auqaf. He said it was strange that entire Kashmir valley had erupted on a rape in Shopian that was based on speculations but everybody was tightlipped on the one in which there was substantial material proof.

Dr Sofi, who is now facing charges of committing rape on a woman in addition to a departmental inquiry, was among the six doctors who had publicly confirmed “rape and murder” of a 17-year-old unmarried woman, namely Asiya Jan, and her 25-year-old married sister-in-law, Neelofar Jan, who had been found dead in mysterious circumstances in Rambiara nullah in Shopian on May 29th, 2009. However, an investigation, carried out by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) alongwith teams of doctors and forensic experts from All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, and Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) later established that both the young women had died due to drowning in the nullah and no rape or murder had taken place.

CBI’s observation was primarily based on the fact that the unmarried woman’s hymen was found intact when the dead bodies were exhumed nearly six months after the burial. However, mainstream as well as separatist political parties had dismissed the CBI investigation as a “cover up” to shield the Police officials.

During the course of investigation, CBI claimed to have found that six doctors, including then Deputy CMO of Pulwama Dr Sofi, had fudged and fabricated evidences so as to implicate innocent Police officials in a criminal matter in which the guilty are liable to capital punishment. In a startling revelation, gynecologist Dr Nighat Shaheen had narrated to CBI how she had actually collected vaginal swab slides from a number of married woman examined at District Hospital of Pulwama and sent the same to CFSL as the vaginal swab of the two women found dead. She had claimed to the interrogators that Dr Sofi had influenced her to collect and send the fudged swab to the CFSL. Public statements of Dr Nighat Shaheen and Dr Sofi had led to violent anti-India and anti-Government demonstrations in which at least 8 persons got killed and over a thousand injured.

CBI has filed the chargesheet against six doctors and five Shopian-based lawyers in a court of law which has granted bail to all the accused who include now suspended CMO of Pulwama, Dr Sofi, and the state government’s Public Prosecutor in District and Sessions Court of Shopian, Sheikh Mubarak.

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