Srinagar: Three police officers and two doctors have been found guilty of "fudging" DNA samples of five innocent civilians, killed by security forces claiming them to be militants involved in Chattisinghpora massacre in Jammu and Kashmir, by a ministerial sub-committee which recommended "severe punishment" for them.

Militants gunned down thirty-five Sikhs on March 20, 2000, during the visit of the then US President Bill Clinton to India.

Faced with a public outcry that those killed, instead of being militants responsible for the Chattisinghpora massacre, were innocent civilians, the state government ordered a probe into their killing. The bodies of the victims were exhumed and DNA samples sent for tests.

Media reports from Kolkata and Hyderabad that there were attempts to tamper with the DNA tests led to another probe and the tests were done afresh in March 2002.

After the Mufti Mohammed Sayeed government came to power in the state in 2002, it constituted the three-member ministerial team to probe the incident.

PTI