Beneath the deceptive calm, despair, anger brew in Kashmir #AFSPA

1. Praful Bidwai
   June 07, 2013 , Rediff.com
   

   Kashmir is at a crossroads. The post-2006 transition from insurgency to peaceful protests now faces a serious threat, says Praful Bidwai after a recent visit to the valley.

   The security bunkers that stood out like sore thumbs every 50 metres in Srinagar [Images ] for two decades have gone. And the oppressive presence of uniformed men bearing weapons has become less overwhelming. But the shadow of Indian security forces still hangs heavy over the social, economic and political life of the Kashmir Valley.

   During a brief visit to Srinagar, I discovered widespread popular alienation from the Indian State. For the Kashmiri people, the gun remains India’s [ Images ] main face, and coercion or deception by New Delhi [ Images ] dominates their consciousness.

   Sullen anger, discontent, hopelessness and despair lie beneath the calm and normalcy at the surface. The anger is intense among educated young people.

   I wish I were wrong, but my discussions with separatist leaders from both factions of the All-Parties Hurriyat Conference, mainstream politicians, intellectuals, and above all, articulate young men and women, leave me with no other conclusion. Reading recent publications from the Valley only confirms this.

   It is hard to predict what form the anger will take, and whether it will once again explode into militancy and secessionist violence, as in 1989. But Indian policymakers and the larger public would be dangerously mistaken in ignoring the simmering discontent in the Kashmir valley, or in imagining that it can be calmed or neutralised by incremental or token gestures like the announcement of yet another economic ‘package’.

   The popular alienation is the cumulative result of a number of factors culminating in Mohammed Afzal Guru‘s execution on February 9, and the widespread disgust this provoked in the valley.

   Most Kashmiris believe, like many Indians, that Guru’s trial did not establish his guilt.

   Guru, Kashmiris believe, was killed for ‘political’ reasons — because the United Progressive Alliance [ Images ] wanted to counter the Bharatiya Janata Party‘s [ Images ] charge that it is ‘soft’ on terrorists. They regard Guru’s execution in secrecy as identical with that of Ajmal Kasab [ Images ] — and hence proof that the Indian State equates Kashmir with Pakistan, an ‘enemy’ country.

   They underline the contrast with the right to appeal granted to members of sandalwood smuggler Veerappan’s gang and to Rajiv Gandhi’s [ Images ] assassins, and believe Guru was singled out because he was a Kashmiri.

   Other factors behind the alienation are innumerable human rights abuses, including the continuing detention of more than 1,000 young people for holding peaceful protests, despite the government’s promise to pardon them; and use of the draconian Public Safety Act — which allows detention without charges for two years — against 12- and 15-year-old boys merely for pelting stones.

   No less important is the disappearance of scores of people detained by the security forces, and many unpunished killings by the army, such as that of three boys at Machil in Kupwara district in 2010.

   All this has strengthened resentment at what large numbers of Kashmiris consider as India’s military occupation of the valley, which violates their freedom and dignity.

   Compounding this is the ruling National Conference-Congress government’s failure to address growing unemployment, prevalence of massive corruption, dilution of the Right to Information Act, and police brutality, reflected in the killing of more than 100 peaceful protesters in both 2008 and 2010.

   Instead of redressing the situation, the state government has drafted the J&K Police Bill, which allows it to set up ‘special security zones’ in ‘disturbed’ areas, where the police acquire magisterial and administrative powers — and impunity for their actions.

   It also allows the creation of Salwa Judum-style militias in the form of ‘village defence committees’. This has bred further resentment.

   No less important is the exposure of the joint civilian-military Unified Command as a handmaiden of the army in ‘security’ matters. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah [ Images ], backed by then Union home minister P Chidambaram [ Images ], has repeatedly called for repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act from certain peaceful areas, but the army has contemptuously vetoed that demand — just as it sabotaged a settlement of the Siachen glacier dispute with Pakistan, favoured by New Delhi.

   Army commanders have spoken on such policy issues in gross violation of the democratic principle that only the civilian leadership can do so. They even threatened to suspend counter-insurgency operations if AFSPA is repealed.

   They strongly loath any dilution of their power under AFSPA to kill anyone merely suspected to be about to breach a prohibitory order such as Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code which bans the assembly of five or more persons.

   This only proves, say Kashmiri analysts, that the Indian State has no respect for Jammu and Kashmir’s [ Images ] elected government: Democracy is a ‘mere showpiece’ so far as Kashmir is concerned.

   Irrespective of whether this perception is right or wrong, it is widely prevalent. An important element in it is the memory of repeated rigging of J&K assembly elections and imposition of Delhi’s puppets on the state until recently.

   A watershed was the 1987 election, the manipulation of whose results spontaneously provoked fierce anger, leading to the eruption of the separatist militancy in 1989, which Pakistan cynically exploited, to disastrous effect.

   The militancy and ferocious State repression claimed more than 80,000 lives before they declined after 2002 thanks to popular exhaustion with violence. Things further changed with the 2004 Lok Sabha and the 2008 assembly elections, which saw relatively high polling such as 40 percent-plus.

   In 2011, local body elections were held for the first time in a decade, which witnessed an impressive turnout of 79 percent despite the separatists’ call to boycott them.

   Since then, Kashmir’s economy has expanded, tourism has boomed, and new enterprises have sprouted, including some in information technology, floriculture and banking. Kashmiris started taking and scored well in the all-India services examinations.

   The number of Kashmiri students in Indian colleges has multiplied four-fold over a decade, according to one estimate.

   However, this doesn’t mean that full normalcy has returned or Kashmir’s wounds have healed. Kashmiris have learnt to use the available democratic space without changing their fundamental stance vis-a-vis India.

   There has been a transition from violent to peaceful protest, which became starkly visible in the 2008 Amarnath Yatra [Images ], and again in 2010. But popular alienation hasn’t abated.

   The Indian State’s response to the protest was twofold: Shoot down peaceful agitators or arrest them on fake charges; and when the protests ebb, make conciliatory moves through committees such as the interlocutors group headed by journalist Dileep Padgaonkar.

   This group is only the latest in a series of ‘olive branch’ offers by New Delhi, including visits by Rajesh Pilot [ Images ] and S B Chavan in the 1990s, the K C Pant committee of 2001, the N N Vohra committee of 2003, several rounds of talks with the separatists, numerous economic packages, and the prime minister’s five J&K working groups set up with much fanfare in 2006. One of these, headed by present Vice-President Hamid Ansari, recommended revocation of AFSPA.

   These initiatives may have temporarily calmed tempers in the valley and even averted a deeper crisis. But none of them produced results. Their recommendations either fell short of a solution, or were rejected outright. That was the fate of the interlocutors’ report too.

   Its story not only provokes derision, but worse, further cynicism in Kashmir and convinces people that the Indian government has no intention of changing course or reforming its J&K policy.

   That was the message from the India-Pakistan back-channel talks too, based on General Pervez Musharraf’s [ Images ] four-point formula. These very nearly succeeded in 2006-2007 and could have clinched a solution which involves demilitarisation, regional autonomy and self-rule without a redrawing of the borders.

   But Prime Minister Manmohan Singh [ Images ] didn’t seize the moment. Soon, Musharraf’s position became untenable thanks to his confrontation with the judiciary. The moment passed.

   To return to the present, Kashmir is at a crossroads. The post-2006 transition from insurgency to peaceful protests now faces a serious threat amidst the perception that New Delhi remains as unresponsive to these as it was hostile to the militancy.

   There have been more than a dozen attacks on security forces by gunmen and suicide bombers, as well as armed encounters, in different parts of the valley in recent weeks.

   These attacks were not led or coordinated by organised groups like Hizbul Mujahideen [ Images ], but conducted by educated professionals — engineers, science postgraduates and MBAs — motivated by azaadi (freedom, autonomy, independence, nobody knows exactly which), and convinced that normal, peaceful, dignified life is impossible under Indian ‘occupation’.

   A majority of the young people I interviewed expressed sympathy for the attackers, while admitting that a heavy price would have to be paid for militancy and the State’s retaliatory response.

   Some even said that peaceful protest has exhausted its potential, and armed resistance may be necessary to highlight the cardinal truth that the Kashmir problem remains unresolved after 66 years.

   These are dangerous signs. New Delhi must heed them and correct course — even as it responds positively to Pakistan’s new Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s [ Images ] welcome offer of talks.

   
   

Related articles

• Activists Hope Law Changes the Way Kashmir Treats Juveniles (kashmirsolidaritymumbai.wordpress.com)
• Eleven things India must do in Kashmir (kashmirsolidaritymumbai.wordpress.com)
• Rape in Kashmir – The Forgotten War Crime (kashmirsolidaritymumbai.wordpress.com)

 

Activists Hope Law Changes the Way Kashmir Treats Juveniles

By BETWA SHARMA

Dar Yasin/Associated PressSchool children running for cover during a protest in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, on Apr. 28, 2011.

NEW DELHI – In October 2011, a Kashmiri boy who was throwing stones in a protest against Indian security forces found out very quickly that what it was like to be treated as an adult by the local police.

He recalled that after he was arrested in downtown Srinagar, officers removed his shirt and pants at the police station. His wrists were then struck with a scale and trampled on by officers wearing boots.

The boy, 14 at the time he was interviewed last fall and who asked to remain anonymous because he feared retaliation by the police, recalled that he sang Pakistan’s national anthem after being beaten all night. “I knew it would hurt them more than anything,” he said.

Growing pressure from human rights groups, which have documented similar cases of police brutality against minors, prompted Jammu and Kashmir lawmakers to pass a comprehensive bill in March that raises the age of juvenile jurisdiction in the state to 18 years, from 16.

The bill, which was signed into the law by the governor in April, also creates a special police force for handling minors, sets up special homes for sheltering them and establishes judicial boards to exclusively hear their cases. The law won’t go into effect until the state’s social welfare ministry crafts the final rules.

Dar Yasin/Associated PressA policeman holding stones to throw back at protestors in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, on March 29.

Child rights activists welcomed the bill since it brings the state law in line with the national law. But they are also concerned about its implementation in the conflict-hit Kashmir Valley, where violence is seen as a legitimate response by security forces to curb unrest and previous attempts to set up legal protections for arrested minors have seen decade-long delays.

The abuses of juvenile detainees in Kashmir came into focus after the militancy of the 1990s gave way to civilian protests. Young boys took to throwing stones in mass demonstrations that rocked Kashmir Valley in 2008 and 2010.

Since then, stone pelting has become a popular way for youths to express their anger against the government, and the government has been constantly looking to stamp out any repeat of 2010. Minors who were accused of throwing stones were detained in police lockups, appeared in regular courts, sometimes in handcuffs, and lodged in jails.

“There has been a phenomenon of detention and torture of youth as young as 10 years old, particularly after the protests of 2008 and 2010 in Kashmir,” the Working Group on Human Rights in India and the United Nations said in its 2012 report.

Human rights activists say that minors are still being arrested under the state’s Public Safety Act even after it was amended in 2012 to apply only to persons over 18.

Govind Acharya, Amnesty International’s Kashmir expert, said that during a visit to Kashmir last year, the organization found three cases in which the age of minors were falsified to book them under the act. But their detentions were later thrown out by the Jammu and Kashmir High Court.

“If there are any security forces who have deliberately falsified ages, then they need to be held to account,” said Mr. Acharya.

Ashok Prasad, director general of police for Jammu and Kashmir, denied that the police routinely arrested children, only the “habitual offenders.”

“Children are not picked up randomly but on the basis of video footage,” he said. “We also show these videos to their parents.”

Mr. Prasad also dismissed allegations that minors were beaten in police stations. “It could only be an aberration. We have not received any specific complaint from parents or the courts,” he said.

Some provisions in the new law, like setting up of special homes and judicial boards for juveniles, were also in the current juvenile justice law, passed in 1997. But these were never implemented. The first juvenile home in Kashmir was set up only in 2011. No such facility for girls exists yet.

Following a visit to the juvenile home in June last year, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights found that not all the children were provided with a toothbrush and that they had to share a towel. “The heavy grilled gates gave a feeling that the children were kept in a jail,” the commission said in its report.

A week before the new bill passed, the Asian Centre for Human Rights released a report that said that Jammu and Kashmir state was among theworst of the 16 conflict-hit states in India in terms of providing juvenile justice.

Suhas Chakma, the center’s director, pointed out that it has taken the Jammu and Kashmir government almost 30 years to enact laws to protect juveniles. The 1997 state law, he noted, was passed 10 years after the national law for juveniles was enacted in 1986. And then it took the state government until 2007 to draft the procedural rules that brought the law into force.

Now, Mr. Chakma said, Jammu and Kashmir lawmakers passed the new bill 13 years after the central government adopted a revised national law in 2000 to raise the age of juvenile jurisdiction to 18, bringing Indian law in line with international law.

“The government in Delhi and in Srinagar have security concerns about children in a variety of protests in Kashmir,” he said. “It was a political decision not to have juvenile justice for so long.”

Arun Kumar, an official in the state’s Social Welfare Ministry, said that it would take a couple of months more to frame the rules, which would then need to be vetted by the Law Ministry. “We will try to do it as quickly as possible,” he said.

The prevailing sentiment among human rights groups and lawyers is that an overall change in attitude is necessary for the juvenile justice to be taken seriously by security forces. Many child rights activists are expecting this to be a gradual process since civil liberties have been pushed aside in the government’s fight against militants over the past two decades.

Vrinda Grover, a prominent human rights lawyer, said the first step of securing rights of minors was not legal but political. “New Delhi has to make a choice. Does it want to support the rule of law or continue to boost the morale of the police and troops?” she said.

source- http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/

Related articles

• Rape in Kashmir – The Forgotten War Crime (kashmirsolidaritymumbai.wordpress.com)

 

Rape in Kashmir – The Forgotten War Crime

Rita Pal   |   Jun 01, 2013, Huffington Post
I have previously summarised human rights abuses in Kashmir in this post. Issues affecting Kashmir appear to have been missed from the international stage. Its people bravely struggle on alone, attempting to achieve some accountability. With one of the highest rates of post traumatic stress disorder in the world, the impact is obvious. Nevertheless, their plight is largely forgotten by India and west.

In April 2013, the UK’s Foreign Minister, William Hague, and the Hollywood actress and Special Envoy to the UN Commissioner for Refugees, Angelina Jolie, announced their fight against sexual violence in war. They announced additional funding of 36 million dollars from G-8 nations, to develop a series of measures to prevent sexual violence and ensure justice for survivors of military conflicts.

Mr Hague said:-

And today we know the facts about sexual violence in conflict and we have the means to address it, so we must not look away or rest until the world faces up to its responsibilities to eradicate this violence.[Independent].
There has been no mention of Kashmir, and just a stony silence from Foreign Office in response to my tweets. It is interesting to note, however, that Human Rights Watch [HRW] were the first to document sexual violence in conflict in 1993 [Rape in Kashmir - A Crime of War ]. They published a report outlining how the Indian security forces in Kashmir used rape to “brutalise women and punish their communities, accused of sympathising with separatist militants” [It's Not Just about Violence]. Since then HRW have investigated and documented rape in conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Colombia, Somalia, Iraq, Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea, and Haiti.

Sexualised violence in Kashmir is “systemic and institutionalised as part of a larger framework of punishment meted out to civilians”. The Indian government decided to crackdown on Kashmiri insurgents in 1990. It was then that reports of rape were disclosed. A United Nations report in 1992 cited that the Indian security forces allegedly gang raped 882 women. Moreover a 2005 study by Médecins Sans Frontières found that that “11.6 percent of interviewees said they had been victims of sexual violence since 1989″ and that “one in seven had witnessed rape. [ A long struggle Against Systemic Rape in Kashmir ] .

The alleged set of crimes, known as the Kunan Poshpora case, happened more than 20 years ago, on February 23, 1991, when armed forces allegedly raped at least 32 teenaged, adult, and elderly women. The Indian government has refused to hold anyone accountable for these alleged crimes. In 1992, the United States Department of State‘s report on international human rights rejected the Indian government’s conclusion and stated that there was “credible evidence to support charges that an elite army unit engaged in mass rape in the Kashmiri village of Kunan Poshpora”. It is also interesting that Justice Verma’s report on the Delhi Rape issue acknowledged the need for accountability. The team wrote

“We are indeed deeply concerned at the growing distrust of the State and its efforts to designate these regions as ‘areas of conflict’ even when civil society is available to engage and inform the lot of the poor. We are convinced that such an attitude on the part of the State only encourages the alienation of our fellow citizens.” They continued, “It must be recognized that women in conflict areas are entitled to all the security and dignity that is afforded to citizens in any other part of our country” and finally the recommendation was as follows: “Sexual violence against women by members of the armed forces or uniformed personnel must be brought under the purview of ordinary criminal law”
A few weeks ago, “50 Kashmiri women came together to demand that police reinvestigate a well-known case of mass rape. The women–teachers, students, journalists, human rights workers, lawyers, and other professionals–filed a public interest litigation case before India’s Jammu and Kashmir high court”. The Hindustan Times recently reported on a petition to the High Court to reopen the Kunan Poshpora case. The petitioners pleaded “As usual, the State refused to act. One and a half years have passed and the State has displayed a cruel disregard for a crime whose consequences continue to date.” The history is summarised by Women Under Siege . The local media reported on the potential reopening of the case. The international media appears to have remained tight-lipped despite these events occurring during the same time as William Hague’s publicity campaign.

The disappearance of the human rights abuses from the international stage is curious. Mr Rameez Makhdoomi, a local journalist in Indian administered Kashmir, stated,

“‘Tragically, Kashmir human rights violations are grossly overlooked by Western world which is otherwise considered as the region which gave birth to enlightened concepts like democracy and liberty. History will remember with dark words the silence of West over gross human rights violations committed by India in Kashmir. India may have literally committed every crime in book-rapes, murders, torture deaths to quell democratic freedom struggle of Kashmir based on the right to self-determination which was promised by Indian state. Western world is acting blind and voting economic and strategic interests over humanity and democracy when it comes to India’s cruel conduct in Kashmir.”
UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Ms. Zainab Hawa Bangura states

“Sexual violence in conflict needs to be treated as the war crime that it is; it can no longer be treated as an unfortunate collateral damage of war”
It follows that the alleged crimes committed against the people of Kashmir and their difficult journey to achieve accountability must never be forgotten by the international community.
–
“To those who believe in resistance , who live between hope and impatience and have learned the perils of being unreasonable. To those who understand enough to be afraid, and yet retain their fury”

Related articles

• Kashmir – Hearing of the Public Interest Petition on the Mass Rapes at Kunan Poshpora #Vaw (kashmirsolidaritymumbai.wordpress.com)
• India Ink: Activists Hope Law Changes the Way Kashmir Treats Juveniles (india.blogs.nytimes.com)
• UNHCR rapporteur calls for repeal of AFSPA in India (kractivist.wordpress.com)

 

#India – President’s gallantry award winner J&K cop held for links with militants

Jun 4, 2013, 02.59PM IST PTI

JAMMU: An ‘encounter specialist’ sub-inspector, who was instrumental in the killing of 68 militants in the Doda-Kishtwar belt, was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly running a militant module in Jammu and Kashmir.

A recipient of President’s gallantry award, SI Shiv Kumar Sharma was arrested in Doda for his alleged involvement in militant activities, official sources said.

State minister for home Sajad Ahmed Kitchloo confirmed the arrest and said investigation is in progress.

Sharma, serving in J&K Police, was allegedly involved in running the militant module in Kishtwar district. The module was involved in the grenade attack on Thathri police station last month, the sources said.

Nick-named as “Robinhood”, he was involved in large number of encounters and instrumental in killing 68 militants in Doda-Kishtwar belt. He has received several awards including the President’s gallantry award.

The SI’s involvement came to light after five arrested ultras allegedly involved in the Thathri police station grenade attack claimed during police interrogation that Sharma provided weapons and explosive material to them, according to sources.

The module was planning some political killings in the mountainous belt as well, they added.

The five suspected militants were arrested on May 23 in connection with the botched plot to kill security personnel near Thathri Police Station in Doda district.

Police had alleged that the militants had planned to attack the security personnel by hurling grenade on the police station on the intervening night of April 27 and 28, but the grenade fell just short of the police station averting casualties.

Sharma had joined police as a special police official (SPO) and got two out-of-turn promotions to reach to the rank of sub-inspector. He was posted in special task force (STF) in Kishtwar district.

Eleven things India must do in Kashmir

Justin Podur

MAY 28, 2013

tags: Kashmir, Kashmir azadi, Kashmir human rights

kafila.org

Indian Army soldiers at an encounter site with militants in Kashmir on Friday. AP photo

Guest post by JUSTIN PODUR: I spent a week in Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir, at the end of April 2013, talking to people among whom there was a wide range of opinion. While almost everyone supports freedom, some are resigned to India never letting Kashmir go, others believe that the struggle will go on and take different forms, some are just trying to survive. It seemed to me, at the end of a calm week during tourist season, that India is bringing about all of the things that it fears: Pakistani influence, violence,  radicalisation of youth, political Islam, and hatred of India.

The Kashmir conflict has been going on for decades. When India and Pakistan became independent in 1947, both new states wanted Kashmir. The ruler of Kashmir acceded to India. India and Pakistan fought their first war over the state that year, establishing a partition of the territory into an area controlled by Pakistan and an area controlled by India. The part controlled by India includes Jammu, Ladakh, and the Kashmir valley. When Kashmir acceded to India, the Indian Constitution made a special provision to allow for Kashmir to have certain national rights, and to allow for the future of Kashmir (in India or Pakistan) to be settled by a plebiscite. The plebiscite never happened. The special autonomy provisions in the constitution have not been honoured. Today, Kashmiris have fewer rights than the rest of the Indian union and they get less respect for the rights that they do have. An insurgency in the 1990′s was brutally suppressed by the Indian army, with thousands killed, tortured, and disappeared. In 2010, a series of popular protests in the valley were also suppressed. Most recently, the government shut all communications down and imposed curfew for several days after the political hanging of Afzal Guru in February 2013. It has taken many different forms, but the conflict between the aspirations of Kashmiris and the Indian state has remained.

When a conflict seems intractable, it is because someone is benefiting from it. Those who proposesolutions to the conflict are therefore inevitably proposing to take some benefit away from someone – in this case, from those who are benefiting from it and who have the power to end it. Any proposed solution can then be dismissed as infeasible. In the case of Kashmir, this has been the most reliable way to keep the conflict going. Propose greater autonomy within India? Infeasible, India says, because the rest of India won’t tolerate it. Propose independence? Infeasible, India says, because India would never allow it. Propose demilitarising the area somewhat? Infeasible, India has security concerns.

Then, having dismissed any of the obvious solutions, we can throw up our hands in frustration and ask: But what do the Kashmiris really want?

Although the parallel has been over-used, and there are a dozen ways to break the analogy, there is an instructive comparison to Israel/Palestine. For many years, advocates for Palestine were divided into one-state and two-state advocates. The one-state advocates, who argued that Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza should all be a single state with equality for Israeli Jews and Palestinians, were accused of utopian dreaming, since Israel would never be willing to sacrifice its Jewish character and become a democratic state for all its citizens. The two-state advocates, who believed they were advocating a world consensus, had to watch Israel continue to grab more territory and tighten the noose that was suffocating Palestinian life. Every few years, Israel would massacre some Palestinians. Israel and its backers would throw up their hands and say: but what do Palestinians really want? One state, two states, an Islamic state?

In the Palestinian context, this intellectual impasse was broken by the movement for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel. Inspired by the struggle against South African apartheid, one of the BDS movement’s greatest contributions was not in its selection of BDS tactics. Instead, it was the advocacy of a rights-based program, instead of a solutions-basedprogram. The argument was simple. If Palestinians have the same rights as everybody else – freedom from military occupation, equal rights to live, work, study and travel, the right to return to homes from which they have been displaced – then any solution that accommodates these rights is acceptable. Conversely, any proposed solution has to respect the rights of the people, or it is a false solution.

What if the Kashmir conflict were re-framed in the same way? What if we thought about Kashmir in a rights-based, as opposed to a solutions-based, framework? It seems to me that if India wanted to respect the rights of Kashmiris, it would have to stop doing several things immediately. Whether India thinks that territorial control is paramount (and therefore wants to keep Kashmir in the union at all costs) or decides that the democratic principle is more important (and therefore wants to give Kashmiris the space to decide for themselves) there can be no progress without respecting the rights of Kashmiris.

I am not going to suggest things that many states are incapable of doing anywhere, like ending corruption or following its own laws consistently. I am just going to suggest things that are allowed and routine in other states. So here are eleven things that India should do to protect people’s rights in Kashmir.

11. Stop using soldiers as police. Troops are for borders. If the army deployment is because Kashmir is the border with Pakistan and China, then army troops shouldn’t be seen in Srinagar or other valley towns. They should be at their border posts. Let the state police do the policing, and leave the troops at the border.

10. Stop messing with Kashmir’s communications. The refrain that ‘Kashmir is an integral part of India’ is constantly heard. But Kashmir is not an integral part of India’s communications network. I have traveled all over India, and paid fairly low roaming fees with my Delhi-based SIM card. When I didn’t want to pay them, I got myself a local SIM card by giving my passport, visa, and a photo ID (all of which seemed excessive to me). But prepaid SIMs from outside Kashmir simply don’t work in Kashmir. And you can’t just get a SIM card the way you can elsewhere. And you can’t send SMS messages within Kashmir, much less out of Kashmir. And of course, when the Indian state does something that they know will horrify Kashmiris, like executing Afzal Guru in secret after denying him legal rights and admitting that he’s being hanged not because of evidence against him but because ‘the conscience of the nation’ demands it, the Indian state also shuts all communications down inside Kashmir.

Kashmiris have taken to Facebook and other social media to communicate, but they feel that they can be hunted down if they write things the state doesn’t like.

9. Stop suppressing student politics. One complaint I heard many times was that the Kashmir University Student Union (KUSU) was banned, while the campus Congress Party was allowed to organise. I asked a University administrator why student politics were not allowed. He told me that it was because students were vulnerable to being used by off-campus elements, and that student politics would be extremely disruptive on campus. Until the situation calms down, he said, they could not allow campus politics. And anyway, he added, there was no tradition of campus politics, unlike say, in Delhi.

I disagree. Administrations always have adversarial relationships with student movements, and if student politics were allowed, there would no doubt be times when the administration suspended students or gave academic punishments for disrupting classes, etc. – but there are ways of dealing with all of this, of negotiating it, that every other campus knows.

8. Stop banning and deporting people. Allow free movement. Arundhati Roy wrote about this in 2011. When I told people I was going to Kashmir, I was told, “Hope they don’t ban you from India like they did with David Barsamian”. A US-based activist and radio personality, Barsamian has a long connection with India and comes very often, interviewing people and doing journalism on a wide variety of topics. He was deported in 2011, supposedly for doing professional activities on a tourist visa. Richard Shapiro (see this piece where he makes the argument for demilitarisation), an American professor, was deported from Kashmir in 2010, with the same pretext. These pretexts are flimsy. There are probably millions of visitors who come on tourist visas and write things about India. I doubt anyone has been deported for writing about saris, handicrafts, or even for complaining about pollution or noise. But write about Kashmir, and suddenly you are in violation of your visa. In any case, leaving Barsamian and Shapiro aside, what visa terms do Indian citizens violate? When Gautam Navlakha, an Indian citizen, tried to enter Kashmir in 2011, he was stopped at the airport and put on the next plane back to Delhi. Effectively, he was deported, something that should not be possible from one ‘integral part of India’ to another.

7. Let Kashmir control its water resources. The National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) controls the water and sells it back to the state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). The J&K government wants several power projects returned to it, and accuses NHPC of retaining these projects illegally. In these joint ventures, the NHPC gets the power, which it then distributes according to its own logic, which includes selling some of the power back to the state. From the NHPC perspective, this is efficient allocation of resources. From Kashmir’s perspective, it is internal colonialism, and given the physical geography of the state, leaves people freezing in the dark when they have ample hydroelectric capacity. Let Kashmir control its own water resources and sell to the centre, as other states have negotiated.

6. Regulate the yatras. The Amarnath yatra brings Hindus from different parts of India to Kashmir to worship. The yatra has grown immensely over the years and, like many other religious festivals, has become politicized. In the context of Kashmir, it has also become militarized. The yatra is controlled by a board that is ultimately controlled by India. Even though the board was constituted in 2000 by the governor of J & K, the composition of the board is heavily weighted towards the Centre, effectively disenfranchising the locals in an event with an increasingly high impact. The growing size of the yatras has become a grievance. Why generate the perception that India is trying to change the demographics of Kashmir? If other yatras can be regulated on ecological grounds, why can’t the Amarnath yatra? Why can’t the board be controlled from within the state?

5. Punish crimes, not people. The Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) means that (as activist Vrinda Grover has argued instead of being held to a higher standard, representatives of the state have more privilege than others. This has to be repealed. Crimes are crimes, whether they are committed by security forces or citizens. Instead of punishing crimes, the government punishes people. Soldiers are immune from prosecution even for torture, murder or rape. Kashmiris who aren’t committing crimes, whether they are shouting slogans, attending demonstrations, or just are in the wrong place at the wrong time, can be punished. If the Indian state doesn’t know what a crime is, why would anyone want to be a part of it?

4. Count the dead. Hundreds of unidentified and mass graves have been uncovered throughout the state in the past few years. Families whose children have been disappeared want to know if these mass graves contain their children. But instead of testing all of the bodies and identifying them, India has demanded that the families submit to DNA tests. What should have been the Indian state apologizing and trying to make repair for ghastly violations has thus turned into a further ghastly violation, a further intelligence gathering exercise. India should do the DNA tests on the mass grave and provide the information. The denial of what everyone knows is true is insanity-inducing. Nothing good can come of it.

3. Make amnesty meaningful. India wants former militants to surrender, but surrendered militants’ lives become surreal and horrifying. Afzal Guru’s ordeal since he surrendered is perhaps the most dramatic example, but there are many others. In order to demonstrate progress in counterinsurgency, India’s military forces have used surrendered militants as ‘false positives’: men are killed and arranged to look like they were insurgents killed in encounters. Their lives are expendable, their corpses a resource. This must stop.

2. Increase connectivity. Allow people to travel. India is supposedly worried about ‘cross-border terrorism’. The phrase has two parts. The ‘cross-border’ part is not a crime in itself. Anything you can do that is a crime on one side of the border is also a crime on the other side. It is the crime that is the problem, not the border-crossing. The same goes for terrorism. The entire framework of anti-terror legislation that was enacted around the world after 9/11 was basically unnecessary. The crimes that terrorists commit – mainly murder – were defined as crimes in the law before the anti-terror laws were passed. Terrorists can be punished for crimes, and efforts to prevent violent crimes can take place, while trying to minimize disruption of people’s freedom of movement. Instead, India’s approach is to besiege the population and deny them freedom of movement unless they can prove that they are not criminals.

1. Allow separatism. One of Canada’s major provinces, Quebec, has a different official language (French) from the rest (English) and the majority of its French-speaking inhabitants want independence. It has a provincial party, the Parti Quebecois, that is devoted to independence, and a federal level party, the Bloc Quebecois, that, while seeking independence, also seeks to press Quebec’s interests at the federal level. Demographically and in terms of voting blocs, Quebec is much larger relative to Canada than Kashmir is relative to India (Quebec and J&K have about the same population, but the whole of Canada, with about 30 million people, has the population of one of India’s smaller states). But the point is that in the past few decades the Canadian state has not taken an iron fist approach to separatism, and the Canadian state has not collapsed.

Indeed, during one of the Quebec referenda (Quebec has had 3 of the plebiscites that have been denied Kashmir), a very intelligent urban thinker, Jane Jacobs, pointed out that Norway had peacefully separated from Sweden through a referendum in 1905, and the world didn’t end. Obsessed with Pakistan, the Indian establishment is looking in the wrong direction for examples. Kashmir doesn’t have to be Bangladesh. It could just as easily be Norway or Quebec.

(Justin Podur is a Toronto-based writer and professor at York University, and was recently a visiting professor at Jamia Millia Islamia in Delhi. His blog is www.killingtrain.com and twitter is twitter.com/justinpodur)

Related articles

• India Ink: Security Forces’ Fatalities on the Rise in Kashmir (india.blogs.nytimes.com)

 

European Parliament passes Urgent Resolution on execution of Afzal Guru

Date: 23 May 2013

European Parliament passes Urgent Resolution on execution of Afzal Guru

Brussels/Strasbourg: In a major setback to India at international level European Parliament today passed the Urgent Resolution on the execution of Afzal Guru by voting unanimously for the motion.

ICHR has, with its intense lobbying, persuaded various political groups and considerable number of Members of the European Parliament to introduce a motion for an Urgency Resolution on the secret hanging of Afzal Guru. The proposed motion was discussed and unanimously voted in the European Parliament’s plenary session today at Strasbourg.

Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany

Barrister Tramboo head of ICHR termed this step as positive measure for human rights defenders and hoped that it will inspire further action from European leaders on the state of affairs in Indian Held Kashmir.

Barrister Tramboo commended Mr. Ali Shah Nawaz Khan, Executive Director of Kashmiri Scandinavian Council who contributed to bring about the Afzal Guru Urgency Resolution in European Parliament.

Final Text of the resolution adopted unanimously by voting for the motion at European Parliament at Strasbourg (France).

European Parliament resolution on India: execution of Mohammad Afzal Guru and its implications (2013/2640(RSP)) �
� � �
The European Parliament,

– � having regard to UN General Assembly Resolution 62/149 of 18 December 2007 calling for a moratorium on the use of the death penalty, and UN General Assembly Resolution 63/168 calling for the implementation of General Assembly Resolution 62/149, adopted by the UN General Assembly on 18 December 2008,

– � having regard to the final declaration adopted by the 4th World Congress Against the Death Penalty, held in Geneva from 24 to 26 February 2010, which calls for universal abolition of the death penalty,

– � having regard to the UN Secretary-General’s report of 11 August 2010 on moratoriums on the use of the death penalty,

– � having regard to its previous resolutions on the abolition of the death penalty, and in particular that of 26 April 2007 on the initiative for an immediate moratorium on the death penalty(1),

– � having regard to the submission made in July 2012 by 14 retired Indian Supreme Court and High Court judges to the President of India calling on him to commute the death sentences of 13 prisoners on the grounds that those sentences had been erroneously upheld by the Supreme Court over the previous nine years,

– � having regard to the World Day against the Death Penalty and to the European Day against the Death Penalty held on 10 October every year,

– � having regard to Rules 122(5) and 110(4) of its Rules of Procedure,

A. whereas Mohammad Afzal Guru was sentenced to death in 2002 after being convicted of conspiracy in relation to the December 2001 attack on the Parliament of India, and was executed by the Indian authorities on 9 February 2013;

B. �whereas the death penalty is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment, violating the right to life as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;

C. whereas 154 countries in the world have abolished the death penalty de jure or de facto; whereas India, when presenting its candidacy for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council ahead of the elections of 20 May 2011, pledged to uphold the highest standards of promotion and protection of human rights;

D. whereas India ended its eight-year unofficial moratorium on executions in November 2012, when it executed Ajmal Kasab, convicted for his role in the 2008 Mumbai attacks;

E. �whereas national and international human rights organisations have raised serious questions about the fairness of Afzal Guru’s trial;

F. �whereas over 1 455 prisoners in India are currently on death row;

G. whereas, despite a curfew imposed in large parts of Indian-administered Kashmir, Afzal Guru’s death was followed by protests;

1. �Reiterates its long-standing opposition to the death penalty under all circumstances, and calls once again for an immediate moratorium on executions in those countries where the death penalty is still applied;

2. �Condemns the Government of India’s execution in secret of Afzal Guru at New Delhi’s Tihar Jail on 9 February 2013, in opposition to the worldwide trend towards the abolition of capital punishment, and expresses its regret that Afzal Guru’s wife and other family members were not informed of his imminent execution and burial;

3. �Calls on the Government of India to return Afzal Guru’s body to his family;

4. �Urges the Indian authorities to maintain adherence to the highest national and international judicial standards in all trials and judicial proceedings, and to provide the necessary legal assistance to all prisoners and persons facing trial;

5. �Regrets the deaths of three young Kashmiris following the protests against Afzal Guru’s execution; calls on the security forces to exercise restraint in the use of force against peaceful protesters;

6. �Calls on the Government of India, as a matter of urgency, not to approve any execution order in the future;

7. �Calls on the Government and Parliament of India to adopt legislation introducing a permanent moratorium on executions, with the objective of abolishing the death penalty in the near future;

8. �Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Vice-President / High Representative, the Council, the Commission, the governments and parliaments of the Member States, the Commonwealth Secretary-General, the UN Secretary-General, the President of the UN General Assembly, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the President, Government and Parliament of India.

 

Related articles

• CPI(M) demands abolition of #deathpenalty (kractivist.wordpress.com)
• Justice A P Shah – “One hardly finds a rich or affluent person going to the gallows” #deathpenalty (kractivist.wordpress.com)
• CRPP Statement of on Death Sentence to Bhullar (kractivist.wordpress.com)
• Mohd Afzal Guru A life rendered ‘extinct’ (kractivist.wordpress.com)

 

Kashmir – Hearing of the Public Interest Petition on the Mass Rapes at Kunan Poshpora #Vaw

Two days in the Srinagar High Court: Shrimoyee Nandini Ghosh

May 10, 2013

 

 by SHRIMOYEE NANDINI GHOSH, 

Impressions of the Hearing of the Public Interest Petition on the Mass Rapes at  Kunan Poshpora

Day 1: 7^th May 2013: I happen to be in Srinagar. I hear through a friend that a Public Interest Petition has been filed by a group of fifty odd Kashmiri women, before the Srinagar Bench of the High Court, asking that the Kunan Poshpora mass rape case be reopened, and re-investigated. It would take a group of very odd women indeed, to ask for something so far fetched. They are students, housewives, teachers, doctors, some of whom were not even born in 1991, when the rape took place on the ‘intervening night’ (as such records always read) of the 23^rd and 24^th of February during a ‘search and cordon’ operation by personnel of the Indian army.

An FIR [FIR no.10/1991, Trehgam Police Station] about the incident was filed. On 21^st of October, 1991 according to police, in RTI applications, and before the State Human Rights Commission, the case was closed as ‘untraced’, (as such records always read). Some survivors andfamily members approached the State Human Rights Commission, seeking relief. The SHRC took suo moto cognisance of the case as well, and passed an order on the 19^th of October, 2011 recommending that the case be reopened and re-investigated, that the survivors be given a ‘minimum compensation’ of at least Rupees 2 lakhs, that the Director of Prosecutions and other government and administrative officers responsible for ‘scuttling the investigations ‘be criminally prosecuted. So far so good. One and a half years passed, and nothing happened. No reopening, no investigation, and certainly no prosecutions. Oh… except 39 of the 40 named survivors received Rupees 1 lakh in cash as compensation, shortly after the SHRC decision. (An important fact, not to be missed, for reasons that will become clearer hereafter).

Then, on 20^th April 2013, our fifty odd women file their PIL. On the first date of hearing, which was about a week ago, the Court asks two questions, which they want answered before they admit the Petition: 1) Is Public Interest Litigation really a remedy, in cases such as this? (2) Can a PIL be filed after twenty two years? The answers are obvious (Yes, and Yes) but the questions have  have puzzled the court, and must be answered. Today, the 7^thof May, a new bench assembles to hear the Petitioners’ response.

It’s 9:55 am and I walk through the High Court gates. I am subject to the most thorough frisking I have ever been through—they are scrupulously polite, but extremely suspicious, especially of my under-wired bra. They poke and prod, and feel me up good and proper. Later I hear that there were not quite so polite, with one burkha wearing Petitioner, who had her veil forcibly removed.

10:20 am: The Courtroom, (wood panelled, sky-light lit) is beginning to fill up. I am in the third row, behind the lawyer’s padded seats– a good spot.Behind me are some journalists. I strain to overhear them. They’re talking of the case in whispers.

10:45 am: Anxiously waiting for the lawyer. Where is he? Ah, he arrives at last. Thank God.

10:55 am: So many women in court today. Are they all here for the same reasons as me? I smile at some familiar faces. I doodle through a complicated Income Tax matter, a Civil Appeal, and a couple of pass-overs. When will they ever get to it? 

11 am: Item Six. Uzma Qureshi and othersvs State. That’s it! That’s the one. The lawyer for the petitioners, Parvez Imroz, convenor of local human rights group JKCCS, stands, and begins his submissions. He reiterates their questions,  (in case they’ve forgotten, as judges are wont to do) and hands over a compilationof cases on the point.The judges are conferring amongst themselves. Mr Imroz continues. He explains how the Indian Supreme Court has repeatedly held that any member of the public can approach the Court on a matter of public importance. That this is really the meaning of Public Interest Litigation.The Bench is impatient. The Junior Judge (the one who was on the bench that asked the original questions) says: ‘You have missed our point. We are not questioning your locus.’

The Chief Justice says: ‘Of course, rape is a heinous crime. There is no doubt.’ The Junior judge nods.  They confabulate again. The Junior Judge appears to be leading the discussion. He has a lot to say. He used to be the former Additional Advocate General I hear later. Very good at deferring, delaying, denying. He did it with the case against Ex-Director General of Police, Kuldeep Khoda, which never managed to get past the admission stage. But I still want to believe the best of them. Tell us, they ask: ‘Does this court have the power to direct that SHRC decisions be implemented?’

I want to interrupt: But, But… That wasn’t your original question! That’s not fair! How can you change your questions? But they are judges, creatures of whimsy, like the best of us. Today they have a different question.

Mr Imroz is  unperturbed. ‘Let me assist your lordships on the point’, he says.  He speaks of the complete non-implementation of the SHRC orders, the non-filing of the Action Taken Report before the SHRC.He says that 22 years have passed, without even a basic investigation into what happened that night. He points to a Madras High Court Judgment, something about SHRC decisions, but is interrupted, before I can catch his drift.The Bench clearly has something else on their mind. The Junior Judge is furiously consulting some notes he seems to have already prepared. Mr Imroz mentions that the petitioners—a group of Kashmiri, ‘public spirited’ women, have just visited the village. It appears some of the victims have recently received Rs. One Lakh as compensation, though the SHRC decision recommends at least Two Lakhs.

Suddenly, the Bench is all ears. The Junior Judge leaps in. ‘Ah! So they have implemented some part of the SHRC recommendation?’ Mr Imroztries to stem the tide: ‘That is not the point at hand. In fact, I do not know the extent…What we are asking for… If your Lordships kindly turn to page…’ But it’s useless. The Bench has seenthe light. It addresses a state lawyer, who happens to be in Court, seated right next to Mr Imroz. He jumps to attention when called.‘We want to see the file on the matter’, they say.‘Some of the recommendations seem to have been implemented. We want to know to what extent. Let the Advocate General  come tomorrow with the entire file.’ ‘Certainly M’lord’, the state counsel is all nods.

Are you kidding me?.Tomorrow? You want the state to produce all their records tomorrow? The same state that has done sweet fuck all for twenty-two years?‘And,’ the Junior Judge adds as a post-script: ‘We’ll also hear the Advocate General on the maintainability question.’‘This is Bull shit!’I say aloud. I am hushed by my neighbour. We’re in Court, I’ve forgotten my place.The Chief Justice has the grace to seem embarrassed by the way things have unfolded. ‘It is a sensitive matter, you know’, he mutters, Yes, I want to say. We  know. Mr Imroz bows, accedes to a higher power.The next case is announced. About sixty people stand up as a body, and leave. The Courtroom empties.

People in the corridors are talking. What exactly happened? Who said what? Why? What now? Some old hands hold court: It’s a delaying a tactic. An oldie, but a goodie. Hearing after hearing. Wearing you out, just on admissibility. This is legal limbo. Neither here nor there, not in, not out. Making you jump through hoops. Just to get your foot through the damn door. In this case, in the Kunan Poshpora rape, they want to see the whole state file, even before admission? And then, they take suo moto cognisance on the Amarnath Yatra, and the LPG shortage.

Some young ones are more outraged: Just because, they may have paid out some money, after twenty years? Why are they going on this compensation point? Surely, it’s beside the point? Under what law? What rule? By what logic, or what common-sense can it be of any importance? Why keep us hanging like this? Why didn’t they admit it, then issue notice to the state to bring the record? Or why can’t they just dismiss it? And then we’ll see what to do next… We can go to Supreme Court. At least, it would be a decision. The battle-hardened reply: Oh no they’re too smart for that. It’s a waiting game. They have done it before. Sailan, Machil, Khoda…the names of so many massacres, so many cases, so many days in court. The air is thick with it, my head reels.Today is the twentieth anniversary of the Khanyar Massacre. I can’t process it all. People can’t stop talking

We troop back to the JKCSS office, still talking. I stop on the Bund for Golgappas. I meet some of the petitioners, a young and angry bunch. They want to know, why the rape of a single Indian woman can have the whole country in an uproar, but a case about the rapes of fifty (seventy? more? We may never know exactly how many women were raped that night) Kashmiri women must prove its ‘public importance’ in three separate hearings.  Back at the office, it’s chaotic. Arguments have to be redrafted, cases found, precedents cited. We’re back in court tomorrow. Some people from the village of Kunan Poshpora arrive: four wizened old men, and one very vociferous middle aged one. They came to the court as well, but I had missed them in the crowd. They tell us that on the 25^th of April and 2^nd of May, twenty three of the villagers were summoned to the Court of the Judicial Magistrate in Kupwara, and their statements about the case were recorded. They are very categorical and pull out several crumpled pieces of hand -written papers from their pockets as proof,  but we’re not entirely sure of the whats or whys of it. After some protracted conversations between the lawyer in Kupwara, and the activists in Srinagar, over a very bad (and probably tapped) phone line we realise that though the case has been closed on the police files in 1991, the ‘closure report’ has never been officially filed. It seems like the buzz about the PIL, has made the police suddenly awaken to this fact. They want to file an official closure report, and in a hurry. Hence the flurry of summons.‘Typical!’ , someone says. I am naïve enough to be shocked.

I help draft affidavits, averring that even though, yes, it is true they have received compensation, they still want ‘complete justice’ (as such affidavits always read). We solemnly assert on behalf of the victims: ‘We want the investigation done by an independent agency, we want the perpetrators punished.’ The old men will get these affidavits signed, and bring them to court, by ten am tomorrow. The journey to Kunan Poshpora takes four hours. They want us to hurry up, and finish drafting the papers already, so they can get home before it’s too late. But they constantly get in the way of us legal ones –the names on the record are all wrong (as such names always are): X is the daughter of Y, not his wife- ‘That is irrelevant’,  we say. Four of the women are dead we realise, once the affidavits are drafted, the names tallied, the stamp papers bought.They have to be redone. One of the people in the office, gives the villagers a talk about not hoping for too much. ‘Nothing may come of it.’ ‘ Yes,’ they say. ‘We know.’

Tomorrow, the 8^th of May, is the date of the next hearing. I wait with a bad feeling in my gut. But I still hope.

Day 2: 8^th May 2013 

Today I go to the JKCCS office first. Scenes of confusion. The  forty affidavits have been signed / thumb printed, but more inconsistencies have been discovered. The villagers point out each one, they have learnt the hard way in the State Human Rights Commission, that a misspelled name can cost a lot. Whitener is liberally applied. Printing on stamp paper is a bitch; one always gets it the wrong way around. Finally, the papers are ready, and we walk to the High Court.

10:35 am: We walk in to the Chief Justice Court, as a huge group of people troop out. The Court has been hearing the ‘Dal Lake matter’, concerning the unfortunately named LAWDA (Lakes and Waterways Development Authority) and the city master plan. When we enter, the Bench is empty. The Judges are in chambers conferring.

10: 45 am: The Court is not as full as yesterday

11:00 am: The Judges re-enter, we all stand. Mr Imroz has stepped out for a cup of tea. Someone is sent to fetch him. The Judges begin with their list. The Kunan Poshpora PIL shall be heard at the end of their Admissions list, since it was only taken on board yesterday. The listed matters drone on.

11:35 am: An interlude in the tedium. On a matter about the inauguration of public park, the Chief Justice remarks: ‘It should not be some one hi-fi. When I was in Punjab, a bridge was to be inaugurated, and we ordered that the oldest labourer should cut the ribbon. His statement was in the press. He said he had only been garlanded twice in his life: once when he got married, and next when he inaugurated the bridge.’

11:45 am. I am bored and hungry. An administrative appeal about Promotions, an urban zoning matter about illegal constructions, drag on endlessly. Seated next to me is the Advocate General’s court clerk. He is reading his boss’s copy of the Kunan Poshpora Petition. I read over his shoulders. In the margins against the first two prayers (for reopening and re-investigation, and criminal prosecution of Wajahat Habibullah, the then Divisional Commissioner for his rlein the cover up) it says in bold letters in ball-point ink: NO. NO.

12 noon. The Kunan Poshpora case is up. The Advocate General is on his feet, a crew-cut junior by his ear. He addresses the question of maintainability, reeling off sections from the Protection of Human Rights Act. His point is that the act says the SHRC decisions are merely recommendatory. That the SHRC itself should approach the Court, ‘Who are these Petitioners? What is their Locus?’ Then he talks about compensation. He says: ‘The Government is going to hold a meeting on 14^th of May, at 3 pm. It is under active consideration. The agenda, the timing is already fixed’ – a bureaucrat passes him a file, which he passes on to the Court. 

This is a shocker! The survivors maintain that they have been already paid compensation of Rupees 1 Lakh, shortly after the SHRC case ended. We just filed their affidavits to that effect. Later, in the office the details I had missed become clearer to me. They were paid Rs 1 lakh in cash, all thirty-nine of them (for reasons that are not clear, one did not receive the money) by the local MLA (now Law Minister) in his official residence, in the presence of the local Tehsildar. Thirty Nine Lakhs in cash! Where did it come from? Why was it paid? Why will the Government not acknowledge this payment? We still don’t know the answers, but we can guess.

The Advocate General moves on to the criminal proceedings. He says that the matter is presently before the Judicial Magistrate Kupwara, that he is examining the Police Challan. Witnesses have been summoned. This, we have been expecting, from what the men from the village told us. The Advocate General makes the mistake of saying, the Court “cannot” take cognisance when the Magistrate is seized of the matter. The Chief Justice takes offence ‘You should not use the word cannot in relation to the Court. Especially, a person in your position. You cannot tell the Court what it can or cannot do.’ The Advocate General’s apologies are perfunctory. The Bench wants to hear more on the question of maintainability, ‘Do you have any authorities?’ The Advocate General fumbles. His junior passes him some Judgments. The Advocate General reads from them, they are all on the question of whether a High Court can be approached, when a matter is pending before a lower court. He never explains, why  if the case is still pending before the Magistrate, the FIR has repeatedly been referred to in the past, as ‘Closed as Untraced’.

Now, it’s Mr Imroz’s turn. He points out judgments on the question of implementability of SHRC decisions. The Madhya Pradesh High Court has held that even though SHRC decisions are recommendatory, the Court can take independent cognisance of their findings– the human rights, and constitutional violations they disclose . He continues to the point about reopening, and monitoring criminal investigations, and mentions Vineet Narrain’s case  on investigations into the Hawala scam. The judges want him to refer to a specific paragraph. He rifles through his pages. Then, he mentions the affidavits, but they haven’t been formally  registered yet, so he cannot fully rely on their averments, which put lie to his ‘Learned Friend’ the Advocate General. He ends by saying, ‘Crime Never Dies’—the Judges nod in recognition of a well worn legal cliché. The limitation question does not interest them anymore.The Court reserves the matter for orders. They will not pronounce immediately on whether the case can be admitted.

We file out. The buzz in the corridors today is more subdued. Is it a good sign, this reserving for orders?What does it portend? At least they are going to pass orders, no more proceeding without even admitting the case. No more legal limbo. We can only hope, while we await further orders. And what about the money? How will they explain that?

The villagers seem to find it hilarious, that the Government now claims never to have paid them. They carefully count the copies of the affidavits we have prepared, and put them away in a plastic bag full of other papers, before they leave the office.

Related articles

• Press Release- Showkat Ahmad Paul, of Lawaypora, is NOT part of a fidayeen squad of a militant group (kashmirsolidaritymumbai.wordpress.com)
• Kashmir: Yet another fake encounter by Indian forces unearthed (alhittin.com)
• Kashmir – Lethal injuries from Non-lethalweapons (kashmirsolidaritymumbai.wordpress.com)

Kashmir – Lethal injuries from Non-lethalweapons

Despite the call by human rights organizations to stop the use of weapons such as pellet guns and chilli grenades in tackling riots or mob fury, security forces in the Kashmir Valley continue to deploy the same with impunity. This has led to debilitating injuries and even death, reports Freny Maneksha. 
 

•  Write the author •  Human Rights •  Send to a friend •  Printer friendly version

25 April 2013 - “Killing us is better than making us blind.” This cry in total despair by a Kashmiri youth, who recently lost his vision, after a pellet gun injury, highlights the devastating manner in which seemingly “non lethal” weapons are continuing to be deployed in the Valley. In 2010 when security troops used pellet guns to quell protests and incidents of stone pelting, at least 45 youths suffered loss of vision because of pellet gun injuries, according to the Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital in Srinagar.

Media reports estimate that in the current 2013 protests, following the execution of Afzal Guru, there have been at least 12 such cases of youths receiving very serious eye injuries with slim prospects of regaining vision. The youngest of them is a 13-year-old boy, Muzammil Qayoom Rather, who was hit in the eye as he stood at the window of his home in Baramulla district, North Kashmir. On 12 February, according to media reports, he leaned out of the window of his home in Sheeri to shout slogans even as protests were taking place in the streets below. He then received a hit in the eye by security forces who aimed at him.

Air gun pellets can cause serious eye injuries and can penetrate the skin, bone and even internal organs. Pic credit: Wikimedia

It was also on 12 February that nineteen-year-old street hawker, Tariq Ahmad Gojri of Sheeri, Baramulla district, received a hit in the eye. Gojri told the media he had ventured out only to buy bread for the family. He adds that he was unable to seek proper medical attention because of the curfew that was clamped then. By the time he got to a hospital, the tiny pellets had spread through the eye. His entire eyeball had to be removed. Doctors say that these types of penetrating injuries cannot always be treated effectively in district hospitals. But, patients from remote districts are hindered from seeking prompt or timely medical attention because of the oft-prevailing curfew and also because, they say, security troops detain ambulances and vehicles ferrying the wounded.

It is this kind of deliberate and inappropriate use of non- lethal weapons that has evoked widespread criticism by human rights organisations including Amnesty International. Pellet guns, which use hydraulic force to pump hundreds of bullets, can cause widespread injuries across the body. When aimed upwards they can cause serious eye injuries. Besides piercing the eyeball, pellet guns can cause penetration of skin, bone and even internal organs.

One major problem for doctors and medical teams treating such injuries is that since the pellets come out in scores, it hits large numbers of persons in many parts of the body. In 2010 Dr Syed Amin Tabish, medical superintendent of the Sher-I-Kashmir Medical Institute (SKIMS) Srinagar, explained to this correspondent that pellet injuries necessitated a big team of doctors attending simultaneously to a single person who may have suffered hits in the head, abdomen and limbs.

According to media reports, at least three people died in March because acrid fumes of the pepper gas grenades used to disperse crowds in many parts of old Srinagar exacerbated their medical conditions. •  Maimed by the state, quietly •  A death in the family

In the same year a medical study on pellet gun injuries was brought out by SKIMS based on the 198 patients who were brought in with pellet gun injuries. The study notes, “Whilst the pellet wound itself may seem trivial, if not appreciated for the potential for tissue disruption and injuries to the head, chest and abdomen, there can be catastrophic results.” Significantly it observed, “Patients should be evaluated and managed in the same way as those sustaining bullet injuries.” The study cautioned that pellet guns should not be used unless extremely necessary and personnel using them may be better trained so that people do not receive direct hits.

Other “non lethal” weapons like pepper gas and pepper grenades (also called chilli grenades) have also been deployed in the latest round of turmoil in Kashmir. According to media reports, at least three people died in March because acrid fumes of the pepper gas grenades used to disperse crowds in many parts of old Srinagar exacerbated their medical conditions. Among them was a sixty-year-old woman from Bemina, named Hazira. Her family members say that on 8 March, a stray pepper grenade landed in her home which worsened her asthma. She died the next day. Another pregnant woman reportedly suffered a miscarriage after she stumbled and fell ill on inhaling the fumes. Whilst these grenades may be aimed at youths protesting on streets, the elderly and young children can be particularly vulnerable to the gas that engulfs the atmosphere, according to doctors.

A doctor at the Soura Institute of Medical Sciences in Srinagar told the press that while they did not know the exact chemical composition of the gas its effects were particularly lethal for people with acute asthma or allergy.

Uzma, a young woman told this correspondent that the intensity of the gas was such that its effects can be felt within a radius of up to three or four kilometres from where it is deployed. �Your throat starts burning and itching and you can go on coughing violently for almost an hour and a half. The eyes start watering and this, too, continues for hours. It is really a horrific and frightening sensation.�

The use of pepper gas and resulting deaths rocked the assembly and the opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party, staged a walkout on 11 March. The Jammu & Kashmir State Human Rights Commission castigated the police and state. In its order, it said the “state is duty-bound under constitution and law to protect the lives of the citizens and in no case are at liberty or have license to adopt such measures which would endanger the health of its subject in the name of maintaining law and order.”

On 21 March, Amnesty International told the government to suspend the use of pepper spray grenades until rigorous independent investigations have been carried out to assess its effect. It has also asked for a proper investigation into the cause of deaths of the three persons. Shashikumar Velath, programme director of Amnesty International India, said the J&K government and police departments have clearly not established any guidelines for monitoring the use of this gas and it is yet another example of “unregulated and excessive use of force by police in J&K.”

Use of pepper sprays is permissible in India and it has been marketed as an effective means of self defence, but it was the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) that in 2008 announced it would begin work on its use as a non-lethal weapon against terrorists. Scientists told the media that they would be using Bhut Jholakia, a chilly grown in the North East, that is recognised as one of the world’s hottest chillies. India’s Defence Research Laboratory rates it as having 855,000 heat units on the Scoville range (which makes it 400 times hotter than Tabasco sauce). These scorching chillies are used to make tear-gas like grenades. On ignition the oleoresin or thick, oily liquid which is absorbed in a composition reacts to liberate heat which evaporates and releases irritants in the atmosphere along with smoke.

The DRDO went ahead with its plans for such weapons even though Amnesty International and other organisations had declared that use of pepper sprays against peaceful protesters was “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.” It described the severity of its effects as “tantamount to torture.” Its use has been rejected in the United Kingdom because of potential carcinogenic properties.

In May 2011, according to a report in India Today, the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) placed an order for as many as 10,000 chilli grenades at a whopping cost of Rs 1.51 crore to be deployed in Kashmir to disperse mobs. Besides the CRPF, the UP state police last year applied to the ministry of home affairs to purchase these pepper grenades which had not yet been tested. Kashmir is the first state in India where these untested grenades are currently being deployed. Interestingly whilst defence personnel and the DRDO have on various blogs and websites held discussions on its efficacy for crowd control, there has been little evaluation of its lethal effects and the fact that its use on unarmed civilian populations is considered a transgression of human rights in many other parts of the world.⊕

Freny Maneksha 
25 April 2013

Freny Manecksha is an independent journalist based in Mumbai.

REFERENCES

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/crpf-orders-10000-chilli-grenades-for-kashmir-valley/1/142098.html

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/on-police-demand-list-untested-chilli-grenades-to-control-crowd/974344/

http://defenceforumindia.com/forum/indian-army/13244-low-intensity-conflict-laser-dazzlers-tackle-kashmiri-protesters-1.html

http://www.nag.co.za/forums/archive/index.php/t-13684.html

Call to support Adil and Roohie from Srinagar

Dear Friends,
Your immediate help is needed in the following case. A petty shawl weaver Adil Ahmad of Khaiwan, Hawal Srinagar has in the past five years attempted suicide 7 times. Adil is a lone brother of four sisters, his father is a grocery hawker and mother spins wheel to help contribute in the family income. They live in a miserable condition ever since Adil incurred a debt of Rs 26 lakh. It actually started when a person bought shawls from him and disappeared without paying him any money. Adil had earlier bought a large amount of Pashmina wool from wholesalers who he had intended to pay after his client paid him the money. It never happened. The client turned out to be a thug and just disappeared from the state. This poor family has cleared some debt by selling all the land they had but they still have to repay some 10 lakh. Since 2008, Adil tried all methods to end his life, sometime he would cut open his left-hand arteries and other times drink pesticides. He has undergone ECT therapy (electric shocks) over a dozen times in Srinagar’s mental disease hospital. Adding to the problem was a recent accident his sister met. She (Roohie) has broken her shoulder bone. On 29th this month she has to reach Amristar where she has to get operated. The operation fee is around 2 lakh and the family has no idea how they will manage the money. I’ve visited the family, spoken to doctors and all and I think the family desperately needs intervention. Last time when Adil attempted suicide was in 2012 but he feels our help can give the family a new lease of life. So if anyone among you wants to help this family monetarily please send in your help at:
NAME: SADIYA ADIL (ADIL’S WIFE)
16-DIGIT J&K BANK Ltd ACCOUNT: 0249040100020355
BRANCH: NAWA KADAL, SRINAGAR
ACCOUNT TYPE: SAVINGS
IFSC Code: JAKA0CANDLE
Branch Code: CANDLE
NOTE: Whenever you deposit anything, please inform me here as well, so that I should also come to know how much has been contributed and how much is needed more or when to stop actually. Also don’t hesitate to ask me questions on the issue.
Thanks
Umar.

Adil can be called on : +91-9797130341 or: +91-9596118343

Please contact Baba Umar  at twitter @BabaUmarr

Release All Kashmiri Muslim Serving Life Sentences in Various Jails in the Subcontinent

No to Political Vendetta!  

Release Dr. Muhammad Qasim Faktoo immediately!

https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/s480x480/298081_499874660078758_2062897286_n.jpg” />

23/04/2013
Dr. Muhammad Qasim: The Victim of Political Vendetta is a compilation of the case documents of Dr. Muhammad Qasim and articles written by various intellectuals and prominent citizens demanding an end to the 20 year long of his incarceration. At the occasion of the book release, CRPP would invite your attention to the long list of Kashmiri Muslims undergoing life imprisonment —around 45—in various jails such as Srinagar, Jammu, Udhampur, Tihar, Mumbai, Gujarat, Nagpur etc. At the outset it is a case of gross injustice reeking of political vendetta on Dr. Muhammad Qasim Faktoo who has spent twenty years of his life in prison. It is important to briefly look into the case of Dr. Muhammad Qasim to make sense of how political convictions, of being a Kashmiri Muslim sharing the political aspirations of the Kashmiri people for their right to self-determination itself is enough to earn the ire of the political establishment.
Dr. Muhammad Qasim was arrested on 5 February 1993 for his political views and to prolong his incarceration was booked under Sec.3 TADA, and Sec 302 read with 120-B CrPC. On 14 July 2001 the TADA Court in Jammu acquitted him citing that the prosecution had miserably failed to prove the case against Dr. Muhammad Qasim and the other accused. As the State of Jammu & Kashmir challenged the acquittal before the Supreme Court of India Dr. Muhammad Qasim was sentenced to life based solely on a confession statement made under section 15 of TADA. Even when the SC sentenced him to life it was mentioned that the “accused shall be given benefit of the period already undergone (undertrial period) by them”. After the completion of 14 years, the J & K High Court directed the Jail authorities to place Dr. Qasim’s case before the Review Board for consideration keeping in spirit with the observations of the SC. The Review Board recommended his premature release on 3 June 2008. Contrary to the recommendations of the Review Board the vindictive J & K government brought in the interpretation that the J & K Jail Manual Rule 54.1 debars TADA lifer convicts from release on completion of two thirds (14 years) of 20 years. (Govt. order No. Home-773(P) of 2009 dated 14.09.2009)
Amidst conflicting opinions in the High Court between a single bench judge which initially quashed the government order while a double bench upheld it taking refuge in the Rule 54.1 of the Jail Manual the long arm of political vendetta stood in between a forthright consideration of the outstanding situation and the release of Dr. Muhammad Qasim. On 31 May 2012, Dr. Muhammad Qasim completed 20 years of incarceration. It has been held unequivocally that despite the correspondence of Sec. 401 and 402 of the State Code of Criminal Procedure to Sections 432 and 433 of the Central Code the power of the executive is absolute and unfettered to remit sentence though it was willingly elusive in Dr. Muhammad Qasim’s case. As Dr. Muhammad Qasim has been sentenced to life under the J& K Manual which had made him ineligible to avail the provision of release after 14 years of imprisonment, then it logically follows that the same manual provides for putting a final end to his incarceration after the completion of 20 years. Without doubt what makes matters worse in Jammu & Kashmir is the overwhelming sense of vendetta vis-a-vis political prisoners.
The Indian State in the subcontinent and its counterpart in Jammu & Kashmir in particular have deliberately evaded the challenging question of evolving jurisprudence consistent with the question of political offences or offences the state deems are against the will of the State. The courts’ disquiet in developing jurisprudence towards dealing with political offences that are not borne out of individual interest of the alleged offender but of collective interest has resulted in adhocism and arbitrariness taking precedence over a possible judicial remedy in the ordinary law consistent with the already established precedence in international law. Perhaps for the first time the Calcutta High Court (CRR 463 of 2012 With CRR 1312 of 2012 With CRR 4000 of 211 on 8 August 2012) while recognising the right of the Maoist prisoners to be treated as Political Prisoners have brought in the question of the need to develop jurisprudence in dealing with political offences albeit the judgement confining its purview only till the rights of the political prisoner in the prison. Notwithstanding the fact that the above said judgment was based on the West Bengal Correctional Services Act 1992 and though there is yet to be a statutory recognition to political prisoners in Jammu & Kashmir, the Indian State has practically, to some extent, acknowledged the difference between political prisoners and other offenders. Since 1995 India allowed International Committee of Red Cross to visit these prisoners and ascertain their conditions within jails (though the distinction however remained confined to recognized jails and not detention centres like interrogation centres and police stations where the brutalities are perpetrated). CRPP is of the opinion that the need of the hour is to expand the ambit of the distinction of political prisoners from the domain of treatment of prisoners to the jurisprudence of conviction and penology.
Only in such a scenario can there be some safeguards, if not all, given the nature of the Indian State, to deal with such prolonged incarceration of prisoners for their political beliefs. Dr. Muhammad Qasim has undergone twenty years of incarceration. There are many more who might face the same fate if the democratic and freedom loving people of the subcontinent raise their voice against such inhuman and beastly face of the so-called democracy of the Indian State and its judiciary and executive. As in the case of Dr. Muhammad Qasim we need to demand the release of many of the 45 odd political prisoners serving life sentence in various prisons in the subcontinent. The list of the names many of these prisoners are provided as annexe though it is not an exhaustive one.
Putting Dr. Muhammad Qasim further behind bars goes against the very grain of all civil and political rights and freedoms assured by the Constitution of India as well as the International Law. The prolonged incarceration of Dr. Muhammad Qasim is testimony to the continuing repression and trampling of all freedoms of the people of Jammu & Kashmir for their political aspirations. As the State use every draconian law within its reach to the maximum (in Dr. Muhammad Qasim’s case the J & K Jail Manual, read with TADA) thousands of Kashmiri Muslims are kept behind bars in various prisons while hundreds languish in undisclosed torture and detention centres. CRPP appeals to every democratic and progressive sections in the subcontinent to raise their voice for the immediate release of Dr. Muhammad Qasim and his co-accused irrespective of his political convictions/beliefs as well as all the lifers most of whom have already finished ten years or more of the sentence.
Brief report about the proceedings of the Book Release Function: The book on Dr. Muhammad Qasmi was released at the Deputy Chairman Hall, Constitution Club, New Delhi jointly by Prof Jagmohan ( nephew of Shaheed Bhagat Singh) and Jeetan Marandi (people’s balladeer who got acquitted by the HC of Jharkhand from death sentence in a framed up case). Prof. Jagmohan in his address after the book release talked about the spirit that Jeetan had given to all of us after a prolonged people’s movement all over the subcontinent for his release. Both the speakers said it is a great victory for the people. Prof. Jagmohan pointed out that Bhagat Singh’s well known slogan of anti imperialism and revolution that he framed in 1917 correctly captured the dialectical relation between the two. Only the correct synthesis of this understanding can save us from these trying times of the growing fangs of fascist assault on the people on all fronts—socio-cultural, politico-economic. Besides he also talked about the need to take cue from the arduous struggle for the release of Jeetan Marandi that gives us strength and hope towards making it possible the release of all political prisoners including Dr. Muhammad Qasim. Thus while referring to the case of more than 40 odd lifers in J&K Prof. Jagmohan stressed the fact that when it comes to a political prisoner the system would always look for the convenient option ensuring that the notion of life imprisonment be for the entire natural life of the political prisoner and hence it becomes important that we demand for the release of all Kashmiri Muslim lifers lodged in different jails and have served around ten years in prison lest they be targets of political vendetta. It is important such books documenting the case and struggle for the release of political prisoners like Dr. Muhammad Qasim be taken to the wider sections of the people. This book release is a welcome step in that direction.
Jeetan Marandi while talking about his torturous experience on death row reminisced how his life from childhood facing abject poverty and forced to discontinue his school after 3rd division had to fight every moment to make his life worth living as a human being. The discerning mind of young Jeetan soon got attracted to the cultural group which used to visit villages and sing songs and act plays that depicted the everyday life of the villagers and the problems they faced. Soon Jeetan’s worldview transforms as he finds purpose in being part of the group and thus also being part of people’s initiatives to do away with their miseries. Sooner than later had he started singing for the people and their rights than he naturally became the target of state repression. In that context he identifies himself with the incarceration of Dr. Muhammad Qasim. The emotional and moving narrative of Jeetan proved beyond doubt how the struggle to keep one alive in the dungeons is as well the larger struggle to do away with all forms of oppression. He spoke about the need to dream even in adverse times and talk to oneself about the need to not give up hope even for a moment. To fight every minute, moment to keep the star beneath ones breast alive. The prisoner defines himself as well as the world around him in these moments of struggle to stay alive and that is what makes him and his convictions a cherishable dream. A dream worth dreaming in the isolated cell. In a dark cell (anda cell) where there is only some semblance of light at 12 noon every mosquito that sucks your blood, every lizard that creeps across, the spider and its cobweb, everything becomes your friend, as you struggle to make sense out such senseless creatures, meaning out of the life in isolation as you keep watching the lizard eat the insect for hours together. It is the desire to live even in that lifeless world that makes the political prisoner and his struggle inside the confines of the prisons a fight to keep one’s finest sensibilities alive and it the same that the mindless and violent state want him to lose forever. Jeetan feels that in this struggle always the news from outside of people protesting for his release, rallies and public meetings demanding his unconditional release all gave him hope and a strong faith in the strength of the people. And it is this united strength of the people and their struggle that can ensure that the terrible injustice of the kind of incarceration that Dr. Muhammad Qasim and his co-accused is going through can be done away with. The release of all such political prisoners in the subcontinent becomes the need of the hour as part of struggle to humanise ourselves.
Zahid a Kashmiri scholar talked about the need for a united struggle of the people of the subcontinent though their causes are different to defeat the designs of the Indian State to suppress all forms of political dissent. The political prisoners committee can be the right platform to realise that unity.
Prof. SAR Geelani, President CRPP, while presiding over the programme stressed the need for the struggle to unite for the release of all political prisoners in the subcontinent. There are thousands of Kashmiri political prisoners lodged in different jails in the Indian subcontinent though in the present programme we are raising only the case of life convicts in the context of Kashmir (more than 40 of them with many having completed more than 10 years)with specific reference to the continuing incarceration of Dr. Muhammad Qasim. The platform of CRPP is a definite step in the direction towards all forces fighting for the unconditional release of all political prisoners. While pointing out that the rights of the political prisoners has well been recognised in the international law he stressed that it is our duty to struggle to make the Indian State accept the category of political prisoners and their rights.

In Solidarity,

SAR Geelani Amit Bhattacharyya Prof. Jagmohan Singh
President Secretary General Vice President

Jeetan Marandi Rona Wilson
Secretary Secretary, Public Relations

List of Kashmiri Muslims Serving Life Sentence
1. AB Rashid, Udhampor was awarded Death but now changed into Life, Jammu District Amphala Jail
2. Aashiq Hussain Faktoo alias Dr Muhammad Qasim Faktoo Srinager Jail.
3. Ghulam Qadir Butt R/O Dooru Mir Maidan, Islamabad in Khutwa Jail now in Srinagar Jail.
4. Muhammad Ayoub Mir, Sadrabal Kot Bulwal Jail Jammu
5. Muhammad Ayoub Dar, Rawal Pora, Srinagar presently in Srinagar Jail, Life sentence by TADA court Jammu in 2009
6. Iqbal Jan, Bandipora Srinagar Jail
7. Mustaq Kaloo, Sopore co-accused with Iqbal Jan, Tihar jail, New Delhi
8. Mohammad Amin Wani, Banihal
9. Mehmood Toopiwal, Kangan
10. Abdul Waheed Thachi, Banihal
11. Jafar Umar Khanto
12. Javeed Khan, Nowpora, Srinagar Tihar Jai s/o M Shafi Khan Nowpora Srinagar 517-96 Lajpath Nagar Blast
13. M Shafi Khan @Prof Shafi Sharyati Hariwanun Khansahab in Sgr Jail.
14. Noor Muhammad Tantry, Tral, earlier in Tihar, now in Srinagar
15. Feroz Ahmad, Budgam Beerwa
16. Sh Raeis Delhi Tihar
17. Ishaq Pala s/o GH Rasool Tariq Shiekh, Manihal Shopian
18. Shabir Ahmad s/o M Abdullah Butt, Handwara Maratham
19. Mustaq Malik s/o Gh Muhammad Shah, Gund Handwara
20. Gh Muhammad Butt s/o Noor Muhammad Butt Koker Bagh Khag
21. Ab Hamid Teeli s/o GH Hasan Kokerhama, Kulgam
22. Nazir A Shiekh s/o Ab Rashid Batamaloo
23. Showkat A Khan Chotabazar present Nishat
24. Zakir Hussain alias Umar Faoorq, son of Ali Mohd of Malhar,
25. Fayaz Ahmad Shah of Babnad Shopian and Muhammad Syed Bhat of Dirhama Bijbehara.
26. Samiulla Sheikh R/O Patan Baramulla
27. Ghulam Nabi Soura, Srinagar, Kashmir Central Jail, Srinagar
28. Amin Dar Banihal, Jammu, Jammu Jail
29. Barkat Hussain S/O Neik Muhammad Pulwama, Kashmir Jammu Jail
30. Farooq Ahmad, Central Jail, Nagpur
31. Farooq Chopan, Central Jail, Mumbai
32. G. MuhammadWani, Jammu Jail
33. G. Qadir Butt Kupwara, Kashmir, Sub Jail, Kathua
34. Lala Hussain, Jammu Jail
35. Muhammad Akram Butt
36. Muhammad Aslam S/O Kamal Din, Jammu Jail
37. Muhammad Latif S/O Wali Muhammad, Jammu Jail
38. Muhammad Shafi S/O Abdal Karim, Jammu Jail
39. Muhammad Hussain R/ O Hadmat, Jammu Jail
40. Muhammad Shafi S/O Mohammad Abdullah, Jammu Jail
41. Muhammad Yousuf S/O Fetha Muhammad, Jammu Jail

COMMITTEE FOR THE RELEASE OF POLITICAL PRISONERS
185/3, FOURTH FLOOR, ZAKIR NAGAR, NEW DELHI-110025