Reopening the murder trial, Srinagar Session Court has started hearing the criminal application filed against a former Kashmiri separatist terrorist Bitta Karate. The criminal application is filed by the family of Satish Kumar Tickoo, the first victim of Bitta Karate.
The bench has asked Tickoo’s family and Karate’s lawyer to file a hard copy. The matter has been adjourned to April 16.
A blockbuster movie ‘The Kashmir Files’ courted many controversies as well as won praise, has brought attention to the plight of Kashmiri Pandits and their exodus in 1990. That brutal Kashmir insurgency took many lives and also had led to exodus of lakhs of Kashmiri Pandit population from the valley.
During an interview in 1991, Bitta confessed that he had killed over 20 Kashmiri Pandits. “Satish Kumar Tickoo was the first person I killed. I got the orders from the above to kill him. He was a Hindu boy,” he said.
In the videos, he could also be seen asking all the militants to surrender and about being deceived by Pakistan.
But later, he claimed that he made that confession under duress and had not killed any Kashmiri Pandits. Bitta was arrested under Public Safety Act. He remained in jail for over 16 years and then was released on a bail by a TADA court in 2006.
