This refers to the editorial, “Ensuring accountability” (September9). With the Northern Command confirming the life sentence given to six of its personnel including a former commanding officer for killing three youths — Mohamad Shafi, Shehzad Ahmed and Riyaz Ahmed — in a fake encounter, a step has been taken in the right direction. The victims were lured with the promise of jobs and big money by the local counter-militants, and murdered in in 2010. The historic decision in the Machil case will strengthen public confidence in the Armed Forces and bridge trust deficit .
Though it took five years for the guilty to be punished, during which even the bodies of the dead were exhumed from for the purpose of identification, not to mention there was a violent public outcry that fed into the stone pelting crisis that summer, the administration of justice to the bereft families will serve as a deterrent. Your suggestion to the Government for the compensation to the families of the victims is justified.