By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter
Srinagar: The demand for revoking the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) has grown louder after four civilians and two militants by security forces in Shopian district of South Kashmir on March 4, with the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry joining the demand the removal of AFSPA which gives license to the security forces to kill without any accountability.
Terming it as a tool of genocide, the trade body said that AFSPA should be removed before people are further killed.
Hurriyat (M) chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who continues to be under house arrest in the backdrop of Shopian killings, said the situation in Kashmir is extremely grim and deteriorating by the day as more than thirteen civilians have been brutally killed by the forces in the last six weeks alone.
The spokesman said that government forces enjoy complete immunity from any accountability or legal prosecution under the cover of Armed Forces Special Powers Act or AFSPA.
“Most of these killings have taken place in the Shopian district where around eight civilians, young men and teenagers have been killed including a 17-year-old girl Saima Wani. Even mothers have not been spared, as two young mothers of infants were also killed,” the spokesman said.
Mirwaiz, calling for abolishing of AFSPA, said that the lives of the people of Kashmir are perpetually at great risk.
“Until the killing of Kashmiris will continue and we will keep losing our young and old men and women,” he said.
Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society linked the latest killings to moral and juridical impunity received by the army when the Supreme Court stayed the FIR in January 27 killings where three youths were shot dead by an army unit.
“Given the recent past context and the weak response of the Jammu and Kashmir government vis-a-vis crimes perpetrated by armed forces, it is difficult to imagine that anything leading to justice will be undertaken by the present dispensation,” a statement made by the organisation said.
The residents of Phanoo village where four civilians were shot dead protested on Tuesday, seeking removal of the army camp.
The police had claimed that the security forces were fired upon from a vehicle leading them to retaliate in which a militant and three individuals who were accompanying the militant in the vehicle also succumbed to their injuries. The army had claimed that the civilians were over ground workers (OGW) of a militant organisation, while family members have negated the claims and alleged army of killing them in cold-blooded murder.
Even Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti in her tweet had referred to them as civilians.
“Deeply distressed by more deaths of civilians caught in the crossfire in Shopian. My heartfelt condolences to the deceased’s families,” she wrote on Twitter.
The whole Valley continues to be on the edge as authorities have imposed restrictions in parts of Srinagar as well as in the other parts of the valley to prevent a separatist-called protest march to Shopian town. The Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL), a separatist conglomerate headed by Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, and Yasin Malik, has called for a march to the south Kashmir town to express solidarity with the families of six persons.
Police said the restrictions under Section 144 of the CrPC have been imposed in the old city area and some uptown areas here to maintain law and order. Schools, colleges and universities have been closed. All examinations scheduled for Wednesday had to be postponed.Train services have also been suspended. Internet services in south Kashmir areas also continued to remain suspended for the third consecutive day.