Srinagar, Oct. 6 -- A court in Srinagar has rejected the bail pleas of eight Jammu & Kashmir Policemen, including a deputy superintendent of police (DSP), who were arrested by CBI in August on the orders of Supreme Court in the case of alleged brutal torture of a police constable at the joint interrogation centre (JIC) in north Kashmir's Kupwara in February 2023. The chief judicial magistrate Aadil Mushtaq Ahmad on Saturday rejected the three bail pleas of deputy superintendent of police Aijaz Ahmad Naik, inspector Riyaz Ahmad Mir and other six policemen stating the case involves the grievous nature of custodial violence. "In view of the cumulative material on record, the court is of the considered opinion that none of the three applications disclose any exceptional circumstance warranting departure from the settled principle that bail is not to be granted in serious custodial violence cases at the investigative stage," the order announced on Saturday said. Accordingly, all three bail applications filed by Ajaz Ahmad Naik, Riyaz Ahmad Mir, Tanveer Ahmad Malla, Altaf Hussain Bhat, Mohammad Younis Khan, Shakir Hussain Khoja, Shahnawaz Ahmad Deedad and Jehangir Ahmad Beigh were found "devoid of merit and are rejected". "Observations herein are confined to disposal of these bail applications and shall not prejudice the trial," the court said. The policemen were arrested in August by the CBI on the orders of Supreme Court for the alleged brutal torture of the victim policeman Khursheed Ahmed Chowhan during custody in Jammu and Kashmir's Kupwara district in 2023. In July, the Supreme Court had ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to take over the probe into the brutal torture of Chowhan at the joint interrogation centre (JIC) in Kupwara, directing the arrest of the guilty police officers, and awarding a compensation of Rs.50 lakh to the victim. A bench of justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta had said the local police demonstrated "complete institutional failure" by illegally detaining Khursheed Ahmad Chohan, 45, subjecting him to "barbaric and systematic torture resulting in permanent mutilation", and then fabricating counter-narratives to shield the perpetrators. The judgment exposed chilling details of the torture inflicted on Chowhan. His testicles were surgically removed, he suffered extensive injuries to the palms and soles consistent with falanga (beating of the soles), vegetative particles were found in his rectum, and bruises extended from his buttocks to thighs. Medical evidence, the court held, "conclusively establishes" thatthese injuries were not self-inflicted. Holding that the FIR for suicide was pre-emptive and retaliatory, rather than the result of any genuine police action, the court nixed the attempted suicide case lodged against Chowhan. Chowhan, a constable posted in Baramulla, was summoned by SSP Kupwara on February 20, 2023, and taken to JIC, where he was detained without any FIR against him at the time....