Srinagar, Dec. 15: The CBI report in the Shopian case has sucked six doctors — most of them alumni of a prestigious medical college — into a maelstrom rarely seen in India.
Among the listed charges — so incendiary that a court-imposed media gag was in place till yesterday — is a claim that a doctor at one point told the CBI that she had used her own vaginal smear in an attempt to reaffirm the perception that two women were raped and murdered at Shopian in Kashmir.
The central investigative agency had concluded in the chargesheet-cum-report that the two women had drowned — a claim greeted with incredulity and violence in the Valley today.
If the CBI report springs any hole under microscopic scrutiny, the charges levelled have the potential to ignite an unparalleled scandal that will put the country’s investigation system under global glare.
Perhaps aware of the implications, the CBI has included exhaustive details in its report.
Referring to the deposition of Nighat Shaheen, a 40-year-old lady doctor, the CBI report says: “Dr Nighat has not truthfully revealed the source of the vaginal smears used for making the slides, as she has made false statements, initially to the effect that the slides had been prepared by her in Pulwama hospital on 31-5-2009 by using two gloves lying in the dustbin of her room, and later that she had prepared them of her own vaginal smear using a glove lying in the dustbin of her room.”
However, the CBI report adds, the claim was found to be untrue. “The second statement has also proved to be false as per the report of CFSL (Central Forensic Science Laboratory), CBI, New Delhi, which did not find any match between the DNA profiles generated from the blood samples obtained from Nighat and her husband, and those present on the slides.”
Shopian, 50km from Srinagar, used to be part of Pulwama – where Nighat worked – before becoming a separate district. Shopian has been on the boil since May 29, when the two women were reported missing and later found dead.
Five of the chargesheeted doctors — Ghulam Mohammad Paul, 59, then chief medical officer of Pulwama, Ghulam Qadir Sofi, 56, then deputy medical superintendent, Bilal Ahmad Dalal, 40, assistant surgeon, Mohammad Maqbool Mir, 54, then district health officer and Nighat — have graduated from the prestigious Government Medical College in Srinagar. Nighat is also a postgraduate in gynaecology. The sixth, Nazia Hassan, 30, completed her MBBS from the premier SKIMS Medical College in Srinagar.
Bilal and Nazia were posted at the Shopian district hospital on May 30, when the bodies of Neelofar, 22, and her sister-in-law Asiya, 17, were brought for post-mortem. The CBI charges the two doctors with submitting four different post-mortem reports.
The CBI report accuses the other four of fabricating evidence. “…It has been conclusively established… that the slides sent for scientific examination were fabricated by Dr Nighat with active connivance of Dr Ghulam Qadir Sofi, Dr Maqbool Mir and Dr Ghulam Mohammad Paul…. Dr Nighat Shaheen was examined repeatedly on the issue of the source of the slides but she did not reveal it,” says the report.
On the basis of the fabricated evidence, five policemen were jailed but the CBI has given them a clean chit.
The investigations say Bilal and Nazia had claimed to have performed a floatation test of lungs but the viscera showed they were pieces of heart. “…the piece of viscera preserved by Dr Bilal as lungs of Neelofar has actually been found to be of pieces of heart,” says the report.
The government has already suspended Bilal and Nighat. Paul has retired and Nazia has resigned.
One of the accused doctors, who refused to be named, said: “There was (sexual) assault on the ladies. I wanted to be part of the exhumation but they (CBI) refused. The slides were not fudged but made from the gloves used on those ladies. The CBI has tortured me all through.”
