To Indian forum members getting giddy in this thread. Just remember, that those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.
India can't talk about Human Rights abuses, especially considering the rap sheet of offences and violations in Kashmir.
Kunan Poshpora Mass Rape:
According to survivors and a local administration official, on the night of 23 February 1991, soldiers from the 4 Rajputana Rifles regiment of the Indian Army gang-raped around 23 women of Kunan and Poshpora villages of Kupwara district, Jammu and Kashmir. Details of this case were covered in OHCHR’s June 2018 report.
There has been no progress in the Kunan Poshpora mass rape case from 1991,154 and authorities continue to thwart attempts of the survivors to get justice. The state government petitioned the Supreme Court against the Jammu and Kashmir High Court’s 2014 order that directed the state government to pay compensation to the victims within three months.
The High Court order was based on the Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission’s recommendations in 2011 to reopen and reinvestigate the case and to prosecute a senior official, whom it accused of deliberately obstructing the investigation. The case remained stalled in the Supreme Court throughout 2018.
Continued use of pellet-firing shotgun:
Indian security forces continue to use pellet-firing shotguns in the Kashmir Valley as a crowd-control weapon despite concerns as to excessive use of force and the large number of incidental civilian deaths and injuries that have resulted. It should be noted that this weapon is not deployed elsewhere in India.
As noted in OHCHR’s June 2018 report, the 12- gauge pump-action shotgun firing metal pellets is one of the most dangerous weapons used in Kashmir.
On 16 June 2018, a civilian was killed in Anantnag district of South Kashmir after being hit by metal pellets fired by security forces at protesters returning from Eid prayers. The deceased had pellet wounds in his neck and throat.
In another incident a 19-month-old girl was hit by the metal pellets in her right eye on 25 November 2018. The metal pellets were successfully removed from her eye but doctors were unsure whether she would regain her eyesight completely. According to information from Srinagar’s Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital, where most pellet shotgun injured are treated,
1,253 people have been blinded by the metal pellets used by security forces from mid-2016 to end of 2018.
In compliance with the right to life, law enforcement officials, including soldiers charged with law enforcement missions, can only employ “less-lethal” weapons, subject to strict requirements of necessity and proportionality, in situations in which other less harmful measures have proven to be, or clearly are ineffective to address the threat. “Less-lethal” weapons should be used in situations of crowd control which can be addressed through less harmful means, especially situations involving the exercise of the right to peaceful assembly.
Cordon and Search Operations :
So-called “cordon and search operations”, a much-criticized military strategy employed by the Indian security forces in the early 1990s, was reintroduced in the Kashmir Valley in 2017. During the peak of armed insurgency in the 1990s, most extrajudicial killings were associated with cordon and search operations.
Typically in a cordon and search operation, security forces order all the men of a neighbourhood to come out and assemble for an
“identification parade in front of hooded informers”. According to national and international human rights organizations, cordon and search operations enable a range of human rights violations, including physical intimidation and assault, invasion of privacy, arbitrary and unlawful detention, collective punishment and destruction of private property.
In a September 2018 statement, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation contact group on Jammu and Kashmir expressed “grave concern over the cordon and search operations in which Kashmir youth are being targeted with impunity”.
In 2018, civilian deaths were also reported due to excessive use of force during cordon and search operations. On 22 June 2018, a 55-year-old man, Mohammed Yousuf Rather, was allegedly shot when security forces entered his home in Nowshehra village of Anantnag district as part of a local operation.
He died before reaching the hospital. On 26 September 2018, a 24-year-old man, Mohammed Saleem Malik, was killed during a cordon and search operation near his house in Srinagar’s Noorbagh area.
JKCCS also recorded 120 cases of destruction of civilian property during cordon and search operations in 2018 including 31 private houses being completely burnt down. Another 18 cases of destruction of civilian property were reported in the first 3 months of 2019. Persons affected have complained that they have not received any compensation.
Arbitrary detention:
Authorities in Indian-Administered Kashmir continue to use various forms of arbitrary detention to target protesters, political dissidents and other civil society actors. A number of laws in Jammu and Kashmir provide the legal basis for arbitrary detention, but the one that is used most frequently to stifle protests and political dissent is the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act (PSA) 1978.
The PSA does not provide for a judicial review of detention, and state authorities have defied orders by the Jammu and Kashmir High Court to release people detained under this law by issuing successive detention orders.
This practice has been used to keep people arbitrarily in detention for several weeks, months, and, in some cases, years.
The Supreme Court of India has described the system of administrative detention, including PSA, as a “lawless law”.
Pro-independence leader Masrat Alam, who was first detained under the PSA in 2010, was charged for the 37th time in November 2018. He was re-arrested under the PSA in apparent contravention of the Supreme Court’s orders that any new detention order against him would not come into effect for a week to help him prepare his legal defence.
Despite being repeatedly detained under the PSA, Masarat Alam has never been convicted of any charges. Several separatist political leaders were detained under PSA in 2018 and 2019 and continue to be imprisoned.
In July 2018, the Government of Jammu and Kashmir amended section 10 of the PSA, removing the prohibition on detaining permanent residents of Jammu and Kashmir outside the state.
At least 40 people, chiefly separatist political leaders charged under the PSA were transferred to prisons outside the state of Jammu and Kashmir in 2018.
There are fears that the Government’s decision to transfer PSA detainees outside Jammu and Kashmir is a way to punish the detainees further, as this makes it harder for them to be visited by their family members or to meet with their legal counsel.
In relation to this, some prisons even deny lawyers permission to meet their clients without special court orders. Prisons outside Jammu and Kashmir are also considered hostile for Kashmiri Muslims detainees, especially separatist leaders, as they are treated as “terror suspects”.
While protesters throwing stones or separatist leaders are usually held initially for three months as a form of preventive detention, authorities extend their detention for three months at a time without producing any new evidence substantiating grounds for their continued detention.
The state government is obligated under the Jammu and Kashmir Right to Information Act 2009 to publicly provide “detailed reasons, facts and materials that form the basis of this amendment”. However, Jammu and Kashmir authorities have not provided any details on why section 10 of the PSA was amended to allow the transfer of detainees to prisons outside Jammu and Kashmir.
A right to information (RTI) inquiry revealed that while the PSA Advisory Board110 confirmed almost 99 percent of the detention orders, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court reversed over 81 percent of these detention orders.
In May 2018, the State Government further diluted the checks and balances in the application of the PSA by removing the need to consult Jammu and Kashmir High Court Chief Justice while constituting the Advisory Board.
OHCHR was informed that despite the Jammu and Kashmir High Court setting aside numerous PSA detention orders, the Jammu and Kashmir authorities continue to detain people by imposing new PSA orders even before suspects leave prisons.
The United Nations Treaty Bodies and Special Procedures have called on India to amend the PSA to ensure it complies with its international human rights obligations.
The Human Rights Committee has noted that the PSA contravenes the rights enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, especially the rights to liberty and to a free and fair trial.
While analysing several cases of arbitrary detention under the PSA, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention observed that, “[the] Government has not refuted the allegation that these persons were detained by security forces under the said Act without serving them with an arrest warrant, which constitutes a violation of due process in detention.”
As a State Party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, India is obligated to ensure the principles of legality and the right to liberty and security.
The right to liberty and security includes the right not to be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention, the right to know the reasons for one’s detention and charges, if any, the right to be brought before a judge within a reasonable time following arrest or detention, and the right to appeal to a court of law to review the arrest or detention.
Where persons detained under the PSA have been transferred outside Jammu and Kashmir, the authorities are also obligated to guarantee them, “adequate time and facilities for the preparation of … [a] defence and to communicate with counsel of…[their] own choosing.” . As noted in the OHCHR’s June 2018 report, the Human Rights Committee raised concerns in relation to the system of administrative detention in India and made recommendations which have yet to be fully implemented.
Likewise, although in 2014 the Committee on the Rights of the Child recommended India that all persons under the age of 18 be handled by the juvenile justice system in all circumstances, and that age verification procedures be consistently and effectively applied, information received by OHCHR indicates that there have been cases of children under 18 years being detained under the PSA in 2018 and 2019.
OHCHR was informed that there are several cases where children under the age of 18 were being held in police station lock-ups for several days without charge and were being mistreated, even being required to pay for their meals.
In February 2019, the Jammu and Kashmir High Court rescinded an order of the Jammu and Kashmir Director General of Police (Prisons) that sought to shift an “under trial”128 prisoner outside the state. The High Court established that the state was unable to demonstrate that the transfer (of the detainee) was done to meet any administrative exigency or emergency. However, observers have expressed skepticism that this decision will stop the transfer of PSA detainees outside of Jammu and Kashmir.
Full report here:
United Nations (ohchr.org)