Police Officer Farooq Khan, who was suspended in December 2002 by former Jammu and Kashmir [Images] chief minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed after the formation of the Justice (retd) M A Kuchey Committee to go into the alleged gunning down of five militants in Pathribal by security forces, awaits his posting orders months after the Jammu and Kashmir high court quashed the charges against him.

• A Kashmiri's anguish

"The order of the high court and the Central Administrative Tribunal in Chandigarh, where I had challenged my suspension, came in September 2004. The high court directed that I should be reinstated. I was reinstated for a short period and was suspended again in October 2004, which was revoked in September 2005," Khan told rediff.com at his residence in Jammu.

Neither the state government nor the Union home ministry has bothered to give him a posting.

• J&K government admits Pathribal encounter was fake

Former director general of Punjab police K P S Gill speaks highly of Farooq Khan's caliber as a police officer who has the guts to face militants despite death threats to his life.

Incidentally, Justice (retd) S R Pandiyan of the Supreme Court who was appointed by Dr Farooq Abdullah, the then chief minister of the state in March 2000, as head of the one-man commission of inquiry had also given a clean chit to Farooq Khan.

• J&K orders inquiry into killing of militants

Five locals were killed in an encounter in Pathribal a couple of days after the Chittisinghpora massacre in which 36 hapless Sikhs were taken out of their residences and killed in cold blood by terrorists in March 2004. The incident took place when former US president Bill Clinton [Images] was in New Delhi to hold talks with the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.

• 35 Sikhs gunned down in Kashmir

Justice Kuchey, former judge of the Jammu and Kashmir high court, held Farooq Khan responsible for the killing of the innocent villagers.

"I was sitting 300 km away from the place where the incident occurred in Anantnag district. Justice Kuchey found that I was acting behind the scenes. The fact of the matter is that the operation was carried out by the Indian Army. Justice Kuchey in his report writes that he had sent a letter to the Indian Army, but they did not appear. He did not speak to all the players," Farooq Khan alleged.   

When contacted on phone, Justice Kuchey said he stands by his findings. "I have nothing to add or substract from my findings. You can pick up the report and read it and find my inferences," he told rediff.com from his residence in Srinagar [Images].

Farooq Khan said he was not averse to being posted out of the state. "Let the orders come. I will go anywhere," he said.