A landmark case and a prosecutor's call...

We thought we would use the confessions made by the military to the military police. But under the Evidence Ordinance, any confession made by a suspect to the police is inadmissible against the suspect in a subsequent trial against him. So we used Indian jurisprudence and argued that when a civilian confesses to a civilian police there is that tension.

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But here they are in the same club where a soldier confesses to the military police. We said that this tension wasn't there, and based on Indian jurisprudence, we argued that prohibition in the Evidence Ordinance does not apply to a confession made by a soldier to the military police. However, even though the Trial-at-Bar upheld it, the Supreme Court rejected it. But we had other evidence. We didn't want to simply rely on this evidence as we were worried that it might be an appeal issue," she continued.

The investigators found out that apart from nine soldiers at the checkpoint, there had been two other Police constables. During the discussions with the military police, the investigators observed hierarchical tensions between the police and the military police. It was found that the military used the policemen to bury the bodies, but wouldn't get them involved in such brutal crimes. "The confessions revealed that the two policemen were not involved in raping the girl but they were involved in disposing the bodies. So we gave them what is called a 'conditional pardon'. The Attorney General under the Code of Criminal Procedure has the capacity to give a suspect a conditional pardon; the condition being to disclose all and testify against the prosecution of other accused. Since we wanted to advance the charge of rape, the only way we could do it was either to take a gamble with the confessions. But we didn't have any independent evidence, and these were eyewitnesses. The Supreme Court while rejecting confessions upheld the conviction for rape because the prosecution has still advanced enough and produced enough evidence to prove rape," she explained.