By Syed Zubair Ahmad,
During his recent visit to Kashmir Rahul Gandhi along with some renowned businessmen pledged to build trust with youths in Jammu and Kashmir. But what would be the relevance of his initiative when there is a mass violation of human rights by police and paramilitary forces in the name of national security during last two decades? Giving jobs in call centers and opening Pizza Huts can’t win the hearts of people of Kashmir in the presence of gross human rights violations.
Allegations of planned and fake encounters by security forces for reward, money and promotions are frequent in Kashmir. Some estimates put the number of Kashmiris killed by the Armed Forces at 1,00,000 and the incidents of rapes at 20,000 during the last 21 years since 1989. According to International People’s Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice more than eight thousand people have been reported missing during these years of insurgency. To a great extent they can be attributed to the impunity enjoyed by the Armed Forces under the AFSPA, which has similarly been misused in Manipur also from where similar reports pour in day in and day out.
[TCN Photo]
It seems illegal detentions, unlawful arrest, killing innocent youths particularly those belonging to minorities in fake encounters, and implicating them in false terror cases have become the trade mark, rather easy means of out of turn promotion and bravery medals, of police and intelligence agencies in this secular democracy of ours.
Recently the Supreme Court took a serious notice over a PIL which alleged that there had been callousness on the Center and Manipur government’s part to bring to book the guilty among armed forces and state police, which allegedly were responsible for 1,528 extra-judicial killings in last 30 years.
The New Delhi-based Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) said in a report released in December 2011 that 1,504 people died in police custody and 12,727 in judicial custody across the country over 10 years.
A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report (2012) says “Thousands of Kashmiris have allegedly been forcibly disappeared during two decades of conflict in the region, their whereabouts unknown. A police investigation in 2011 by the Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) found 2,730 bodies dumped into unmarked graves at 38 sites in north Kashmir. At least 574 were identified as the bodies of local Kashmiris. The government had previously said that the graves held unidentified militants, most of them Pakistanis whose bodies had been handed over to village authorities for burial. Many Kashmiris believe that some graves contain the bodies of victims of enforced disappearances.”
Looking at these facts it seems that our police and intelligence agencies are unaccountable and out of control. The protectors of law have become outlaws. They do whatever they like and whichever way they want. They think they are above law and unaccountable.
On the other side the unprecedented attack on Mumbai on 26.11.2008 and the Kargil intrusions in 1999 are question marks on the functioning of India’s security and intelligence agencies. While the police is busy in killing the innocent citizens and framing them in false cases and committing gross human rights violations the Indian intelligence agencies are also playing in the hands of some vested interests who want to destabilize this country. The cold blood killing of Ishrat Jahan is an example of it. More disgusting is the fact that this fake encounter was staged on the tip-off from Gujarat IB. In fact most of the fake encounters were executed on the input by our intelligence agencies. It indicates our police and intelligence agencies are hand in glove in the killings of innocent people. The truths about these fake encounters would have never brought to light and Ishrat Jahan, Sohrabuddin, Parjapati, Sadiq Jamal etc remained terrorists had the court not intervened to order probe into these fake encounters.
Instead of maintaining the law and order and nabbing the real offenders the police and intelligence agencies are busy in pouncing and implicating innocent people particularly Muslim youths. The recently released report Framed, Damned, Acquitted: Dossiers of a Very Special Cell, by Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Association (JTSA) and a series of stories published in Indian Express by Muzamil Jaleel under the title of “THE SIMI SCARE-SHAM PROBE, TRIALS OF ERROR” have ample evidence of the callousness of police and intelligence agencies.
The time has come to reform the police and intelligence agencies and make them accountable before they turn into Frankenstein monsters. Earlier Vice President of India, M. Hamid Ansari has also emphasized on the need for the accountability of intelligence agencies and the necessity for them to work under some sort of legal frame.
(Syed Zubair Ahmad is a Writer & Journalist. He can be reached at: [email protected])