SRINAGAR, India (AP) — A soldier and police officer were arrested Monday as police investigate an alleged fake gunbattle and a civilian's death in Indian-controlled Kashmir, officials said.
The Indian army and police claimed they had killed a top commander of Lashkar-e-Taiba militants during a 12-hour gunbattle in a forested area in Poonch region on Sunday. The army identified the dead man as Abu Usman of Pakistan.
Further investigation found the dead man was a local Hindu resident and mentally unsound, said a police officer on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to media.
The police registered a murder investigation case against an army soldier and an officer in a counterinsurgency police unit.
Omar Abdullah, Indian Kashmir's top elected official, said the arrested men confessed to passing the wrong information to the army, leading to the man's killing.
Rights groups have said impunity laws and a policy of rewards for killing militants have led to past abuses, and Kashmiris for years have said government officers killed innocent civilians passed off as armed rebels.
In 2007, seven police officers were arrested on charges that they killed civilians in staged gunbattles and claimed the victims were militants in order to get rewards and promotions.
The charges were the first brought against any police official for targeting civilians since the start of an armed conflict that has left tens of thousands of civilians dead in Indian Kashmir since 1989.
Anti-India sentiment runs deep in Kashmir, the Himalayan region divided between India and Pakistan and claimed entirely by both.
Under laws in place since 1990, army and paramilitary officers can search homes and make arrests without warrants. They can shoot at anyone suspected of being a separatist and can blow up a building or a home on suspicion that insurgents are using it.
The impunity laws also protect soldiers from being prosecuted in civilian courts unless the federal government approves.
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