The army on Thursday convicted seven men, including two officers and five soldiers, for their involvement in the 2010 Machil fake encounter case in which three youths were killed after being lured for jobs in Jammu and Kashmir, according to Ministry of Defence (MOD) sources.
All the service benefits of the seven convicted armymen have also been suspended, the MOD sources were further quoted, as saying.
Three youths - Mohamad Shafi, Shehzad Ahmed and Riyaz Ahmed were allegedly lured to a border area and shot dead in 2010.
Security forces had earlier claimed that they had killed three infiltrators and recovered five AK47 rifles, ammunition and Pakistani currency from them in the Machil sector.
According to reports, the J and K Police found that the men killed by the security forces were actually innocent civilians, who were reported missing from a village in Baramulla District.