The army has initiated a court martial against a captain involved in an alleged gunfight in which three civilians, including a minor, were killed and passed off as militants in July 2020.

The decision to court-martial the officer came 21 months after the killings triggered outrage in the Valley. Some pro-government social media handles have praised the army “for setting an example” but the families of the victims said they have little hope of justice.

“The army has initiated general court-martial proceedings against a captain in Op Amshipura, Shopian, in south Kashmir in July 2020 after the court of inquiry and the summary of evidence indicated a need for disciplinary proceedings,” a defence spokesman said in a brief statement.

“Indian Army is committed to ethical conduct of operations. Further updates on the case will be shared in a manner so as not to prejudice due process of law.”

The army statement did not name the captain.

The officer is accused of killing three cousins from Rajouri, Abrar Ahmed, 25, Imtiyaz Ahmed, 22, and Mohammed Ibrar, 17, in a staged gunfight. The three had come to the Valley to earn a living as labourers after facing hardships back home in the Covid lockdown.

A police chargesheet filed last year before a judge in Shopian had claimed that Captain Bhoopinder Singh alias Major Basheer Khan of 62 Rashtriya Rifles had hatched the conspiracy for the cash reward of Rs 20 lakh. The embarrassed army later claimed it has “no system for cash rewards”.

The army was initially reluctant to admit any wrong doing but after the uproar, both the police and the army launched separate investigations. Police confirmed the DNA samples of the Rajouri families matched with the three slain men.

The bodies were buried in a far-off graveyard reserved for militants in Baramulla district. They were exhumed after 73 days as families were fighting for the bodies to be returned to them for burial in their ancestral graveyards in Rajouri.

Mohammad Yousuf Chouhan, father of Abrar, said they have little hope of justice.

“My case is pending in the civil court in Shopian for many months. After nearly two years, they (army) are (reportedly) court-martialling the captain. What hope can I have when they are just starting,” Yousuf told The Telegraph.

“They gave Rs 5 lakh to each family. I told them take Rs 15 lakh more from us but give us Bhoopinder Singh. I have no hope from them but I have hope from the media which is putting pressure on them to do justice.”

Yousuf said he, along with his daughter Shameem Kousar, were camping at an army camp in Srinagar for the past nine days.

“Four of us including my daughter Shameem Kousar, who had filed a missing report, were summoned to Kashmir. My daughter had to drop her two-year-old son at her home in Rajouri. All these days, they kept us here without asking a question,” Yousuf told The Telegraph.

“Today I was told by somebody else, and not by army, that they are court-martialling Bhoopinder Singh. Why did they keep us here for nothing? They let us go today after I told them what was the fun keeping us here. They told us to come back after a month”.

The father said his grandson Aanish Chouhan was 15 months old when his father was killed. “That time he was too young to understand. Now he has started asking questions. He recognises his father’s pictures and every time I return home, he asks me where his Janu (father) was. I tell him he has gone to Kuwait for work.”

Yousuf’s son worked in Kuwait earlier.