Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Sept 19: A Supreme Court bench on Monday declined to hear a new petition for an investigation into the genocide of Kashmiri Hindus and Sikhs and the recovery of their property. Earlier, the top court had already rejected a PIL on the matter.
Ashutosh Taploo, whose father Tikalal Taploo was murdered in 1989 by JKLF-affiliated militants, submitted the petition.
Senior attorney Gaurav Bhatia stated that his client has been “running pillar to post for 30 years” to obtain justice when speaking on behalf of the petitioner.
“Petition is by the son of a man who was murdered by the JKLF. There are existing FIRs. For the first time in 2022 on the floor of the House the minister said there is an FIR,” said Bhatia, who argued that the family had not been given a copy of the FIR so far.
“I didn’t even get the death certificate for years” said Bhatia.
In his arguments, Bhatia said that despite the fact that the 1984 Anti-Sikh riot cases had been “reopened and examined” following court orders, more than 30 years after the riots, Kashmir cases had not received a comparable reprieve.
In 1989–1990, he mentioned five different incidents of targeted slaughter of Kashmiri Hindus and Sikhs, including the murder of a judge who was shot to death after finding two JKLF-affiliated terrorists guilty.
“We have faith in our high courts. You can go to the high court,” said the bench of justices BR Gavai and CT Ravikumar.
“We cannot discriminate between two petitions on the same issue. We dismissed a plea by We the Citizens also,” said the bench.
The court also dismissed the lawyer’s claim that he was unable to file the case in Kashmir due to the political circumstances there.
Similar directives were recently issued by the Apex Court in response to a PIL brought by the NGO We the Citizens, instructing them to contact the Central Government for rehabilitation and an investigation into cases of the alleged genocide of Kashmiri Hindus and Sikhs.
