Srinagar: More than two years after a policeman was allegedly subjected to custodial torture, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested two Jammu and Kashmir police officers and four other police personnel in connection with the case.Following orders of the Supreme Court which came last month, the central agency had constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT), headed by deputy superintendent of police Subash Chander, for investigating the case of Khursheed Ahmad Chohan, a police constable who was allegedly tortured in custody.The accused – deputy superintendent of police Aijaz Ahmad Naikoo, sub inspector Riyaz Ahmad and policemen Imtiyaz Ahmad, Hajagnir Ahmad, Shakir Ahmad and Mohammad Younis – were called for questioning during the investigations and arrested. “They are lodged in a jail in Srinagar,” reports said.The arrest of policemen for abuse of power is a rare instance of official reprimand against security forces in Jammu and Kashmir. The Supreme Court on July 21 had directed the central agency to arrest the alleged perpetrators while announcing a compensation of Rs 50 lakh.Chohan’s case is likely to generate hope among survivors of torture and the families of those who died in the custody of the security forces, and have been reluctant to approach the courts for justice, fearing reprisal from the authorities.Tortured for six daysOn February 20, 2023, Chohan, who was posted as a constable in Baramulla district police lines, was directed by Naikoo to report at the office of the senior superintendent of police (Kupwara) in connection with a narcotics case. He was later shifted to a joint interrogation centre in the district.According to court documents, Chohan was allegedly tortured for six days during which his testicles were surgically removed and “vegetative particles” were forced into his rectum. His wife, Rubina Akhtar, told the police about the severity of the assault due to which Chohan had slipped into a coma.However, instead of acting against the alleged perpetrators, the Kupwara police said that Chohan suffered a self-inflicted wound when he “tried to cut his vein with a blade”. He booked under section 309 (abetment to suicide) of Indian Penal Code on February 26, 2023.Also read: ‘Systematic Cover-Up’: Supreme Court Order on J&K Police’s Custodial Torture Bares Extent of CrueltyThe case made a turnaround when Chohan’s medical examination report, conducted after the alleged torture, was obtained by his family through a Right to Information Act (RTI) query filed by his wife.The report showed Chohan, who survived the torture, had suffered “laceration on the scrotum with both testicles surgically removed, bruises on the buttocks extending to the thighs, tenderness on the palms and soles indicative of blunt trauma, the presence of vegetative particles in the rectum and multiple fractures”.Supreme court rulingAfter hearing Akhtar’s petition, the apex court observed that it has “shocked our conscience” that the dismembered genitalia of the victim were brought in a plastic bag to a hospital in Srinagar along with the victim on February 26 by a sub-inspector of J&K Police.Coming down heavily on the police investigation, the Supreme Court bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta on July 21, 2025 observed that it “reveals a disturbing pattern of systematic cover-up” and “abuse of authority”.“The unprecedented gravity of this case involving brutal and inhuman custodial torture, characterised by the complete mutilation of the appellant’s genitalia, represents one of the most barbaric instances of police atrocity which the state is trying to defend and cover up with all pervasive power,” the SC observed.The apex court had also ordered that the compensation amount of Rs 50 lakh should be recovered from the salaries of the accused police personnel.Extrajudicial killings in J&KSince the eruption of armed insurgency in the early 1990s, torture and extrajudicial killings have been widely reported in Jammu and Kashmir. Alleged perpetrators of such torture have largely escaped official scrutiny due to a number of factors, including legislations such as Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA).Amnesty International has documented details of 715 detainees of Jammu and Kashmir who died in the custody of security forces between 1990-1994. While some of them were allegedly tortured which resulted in their death, many others were shot and killed.In 2019, a report by the now defunct Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society – a human rights advocacy group based in Srinagar, whose convenor, Khurram Pervez is languishing in jail under anti-terrorism charges – and the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons, documented 432 cases of torture by security forces between 1990-2017 in J&K, of which 70% of victims were civilians.