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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | RTI Plea Exposes AFSPA Lies In Kashmir

RTI Plea Exposes AFSPA Lies In Kashmir

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published Published on Oct 20, 2011   modified Modified on Oct 20, 2011
-Kashmir Observer
 
New Delhi’s claims of the AFSPA not standing in the way of justice for victims of forces’ atrocities in Kashmir have been exposed further by civil society activism squeezing incriminating data out of the government. 
 
With public organisations asserting almost 8000 enforced disappearances among innumerably more human rights violations at the hands of the central armed forces and the state police in Kashmir in the past two decades, the state government has applied to the centre for prosecution in barely 50 cases since 1989, out of which action has been sanctioned only in eight. 

An RTI plea by Kashmir’s Coalition of Civil Societies not only shows up the blanket immunity central forces and police enjoy in Kashmir under the AFSPA, but also brings out glaring contradictions between the state and the central governments, highlighting their cavalier attitude over an issue concerning thousands of suffering families.

In response to the RTI application, the state home department has declared the centre had declined prosecution in 26 of the 50 cases, while a decision on 16 was still pending. 
 
The remaining 8, where sanction for prosecution is claimed to have been “recommended,” the state home department fails to clarify what “recommended” means. 
 
According to the state government, out of the 50 cases, 31 had been sent to the defence ministry and 19 to the union home ministry. 
 
Apart from the fact the defence ministry contradicts the state government’s figures, saying that it had received 35 cases instead of 31, a defence ministry affidavit to the Jammu and Kashmir High Court says that it (the defence ministry) has not accorded sanction even in one. 

This again belies the state home department which claims that two of the eight cases cleared for prosecution by the centre pertain to the defence ministry. 

In more stark evidence of the Jammu and Kashmir government’s shoddy ways, the defence ministry explicitly states in a June 5, 2009 affidavit that prosecution in the two cases, pertaining to FIR 99/98 of the Uri police station and  FIR 213/95 of  the Anantnag police station, had been declined, but in a communiqué in September this year, the state home department continues to maintain that prosecution had been recommended in both these cases.        

In yet another brazen instance of disinformation, the state government says that sanction under the AFSPA for the prosecution of Major Avtar Singh involved in the brutal killing of advocate Jalil Andrabi was still awaited, while the defence ministry says that it had not received the case at all. 

Major Singh, who has another case of a custodial killing in Baramullla awaiting sanction for prosecution, lives out of reach in the US despite and red corner warrant against him by the Interpol. 

The Indian defence ministry has not moved to get him extradited for over a decade, furnishing yet more evidence of New Delhi’s concern and value for the lives of Kashmiris.

Kashmir Observer, 19 October, 2011, http://www.kashmirobserver.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=9260:rti-plea-exposes-afspa-lies-in-kashmir&catid=15:top-news&Itemid=2


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