Srinagar, Oct. 31: Three teenaged students have told a court that police forced them to sodomise each other in custody, their bail application drawing a parallel with the alleged torture in Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison.

Their lawyer Bashir Sidiq said all three boys were minors (under 18) and had been arrested last Tuesday on the charge of throwing stones during street protests.

“When they were produced before the court yesterday, they took off their clothes and showed the torture marks to the judge,” he said.

The court granted bail and ordered medical examinations, which Srinagar’s SHHS hospital sources said would be conducted on Monday.

Sidiq’s bail application before additional district magistrate Shakti Gupta said: “The minors… were forced to go for sodomy with each other by police. The whole episode was filmed by the police officers with their mobile cameras and they were deriving pleasure out of it.”

It added: “They (the boys) are horrified and not in a position to walk as the treatment they were given was worse than Abu Garib.”

The three boys were among 11 teenaged students arrested on October 27 for allegedly stoning the police in the old city area. A case was registered against them at S.R. Gunj police station for rioting and damaging public property.

Sidiq said four of the 11 were minors and some of them were to appear in their Class X examinations. “They were arrested by the police on false charges, without any rhyme or reason,” he said.

“Three boys told me that police had forced them to sodomise each other. They were also brutally interrogated in custody and still have marks of torture on their bodies.”

The high court bar association plans to file a public interest litigation against the police in relation to the case, sources said.

H.K. Lohia, the deputy inspector-general of police (central Kashmir), said the allegation was false. “The court has directed hospital authorities to conduct their medical examination, which will make everything clear,” he said.

The police have arrested hundreds of youths over the past few months on charges of stone-throwing during the protests against the Amarnath land hand-over and the alleged rape and murder of two women in Shopian.

Many of them have been booked under the Public Safety Act, which allows detention without trial for up to two years.