The High Court in Indian-controlled Kashmir has ordered re- investigation into the massacre at a small village in 1998 by India's premier investigating agency the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), officials said Thursday.

"It is provided that CBI will take the matter for investigation and conduct the probe in accordance with law and ensure that justice is meted out to the petitioners," reads the order passed by the region's High Court on Wednesday.

The massacre took place at village Sailan-Surankote of Poonch district, around 145 km southwest of Srinagar city, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir. Nineteen persons including men, women and children were killed at the house of Hassan Mohammad Sheikh. Police had blamed foreign militants for the massacre.

According to family members of the victims, the massacre was an act of revenge carried out by Indian army and police for the killing of informer Zakir Hussain by his cousin Imtiyaz, who was a militant.

However, soon after the massacre, an investigation by the region's State Human Rights Commission ruled out the role of foreign militants and instead implicated the Indian army and police in the killings, recommending a fresh inquiry.

In 2011, the families of the massacre victims filed a petition for re-investigation in the case before the region's High Court.

The court said it is hoped and trusted that investigation would be conducted with a reasonable dispatch.

The region's rights groups have welcomed the court order and demanded CBI inquiry should lead to the prosecution of the accused.

"We welcome the order, which is also an indictment of the Jammu and Kashmir Police that took no action for 14 years, and in fact sought to scuttle any fair investigations into the massacre," said Khuram Parvez, program coordinator of the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society.

The rights group also demanded that CBI should probe all the massacres that took place in the region since 1990.