SRINAGAR, May 11: India’s top investigating agency on Thursday charged five army officers with murdering five civilians who had wrongly been described as militants in occupied Kashmir, a court official said.

The charges were filed against a brigadier, a lieutenant colonel, two majors and a junior commissioned officer in Srinagar.

“The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed charges against the accused army men for their involvement in the killing of five civilians,” a court official said in Srinagar.

He said the charges filed before a chief judicial magistrate in Srinagar included murder, abduction with intention to murder, wrongful confinement, criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence.

The army must say by the next hearing on May 24 whether it would launch court martial proceedings against the accused or would like them to be tried by a civilian court.

The army claimed in March 2000 it had killed five “hardcore” Islamic militants whom they said were involved in the massacre of 37 Kashmiri Sikhs in the southern district of Anantnag earlier that month.

But huge public protests over what villagers said was the gunning down of innocent civilians forced the government to have the bodies undergo DNA testing. The tests proved the five were civilians and not rebels.

The Sikh massacre coincided with the arrival of then-US president Bill Clinton in India.—AFP