Yes indeed dear our media has kept us in dark over your Draconian POTA and TADA. So i think we Pakistanis should get information from Indian media over Indian Draconian laws.-
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Human Rights Diary
Turmoil in Manipur
Unrestricted power to security forces must go
by Kuldip Nayar
I HAVE seen it happening in Kashmir: men baring their chests and challenging the security forces to shoot them. What youthful Kashmir leader Yasin Malik was demanding when he went on fast unto death for the first time was that Amnesty International should visit the valley to report on the violations of human rights. Foreigners could not be allowed. He agreed to an Indian team which confirmed the atrocities committed by the security forces. Still there was no let-up in the excesses. The result is the alienation of practically every Kashmiri.
Manipur is going the same way. A dozen women paraded naked in Imphal the other day and chided the Army, take our flesh. The response of the security forces was no different. They picked up the defiant Manorma Devi as they did in Kashmir with all those who did not obey the law. Her family, too, like several households in the valley, was given a memo by security personnel that Manorma would be handed over to the nearest police station the next morning. Instead, her body was found with multiple torture and bullet marks.
How familiar is the response of the Congress-led government which has co-opted quite a few NGOs and which has the support of the Left. There is no proposal to repeal the draconian Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA). So far it operates in the North-East and Kashmir besides Andhra Pradesh and Punjab. It gives a jawan powers to search any premises at his will, detain a person without warrants and shoot to kill without any warning. New Delhi should realise that certain laws are bad in concept and content. Even when they are enacted AFSPA was passed by Parliament when Jawaharlal Nehru was the Prime Minister they have to be examined again and again to see whether they had served their purpose. What held good in 1958, provided it was at all good at that time, could not be true today.
If a government wants to depend on extra-judicial powers to administer any part of the country even after 57 years of Independence, there is something basically wrong with the approach of that government. Former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission Ranganath Mishra admitted that AFSPA was grossly misused. The present government cannot brush aside his criticism because he was brought to the Rajya Sabha on the Congress ticket.
All governments suffer from a false sense of prestige. The Congress-led government should have been more considerate and humane when Manipur is in the midst of an agitation over the misuse of AFSPA. The state Chief Minister sits at Delhi for several days. He should have returned with something concrete. There was not even an official statement to regret the killings of the past or to announce the amendment, if not the repeal, of AFSPA. Even a clerk in the Home Ministry would have anticipated the protest if the Chief Minister went back empty-handed. This was what happened. People came out in the streets to demand for the repeal of AFSPA. The government answer was on the expected lines. There was police firing on thousands of demonstrators. Many students in the throng were injured.
Such methods to curb insurgency or militancy are responsible for driving people to the wall. Even an ordinary person loses his or her cool. Manipur, Jammu and Kashmir and parts of Andhra Pradesh remain disturbed because the basic problems like employment have not been solved. The rulers should realise that the armed forces are not there to solve political problems. The government and the complainants have to sit together, across the table, to solve them.
Since the security forces are used to rough and ready methods, they do not know how to deal with those who differ or defy. They are dissenters, not the countrys enemy. For the armed forces, there is a target or a salient feature to be possessed. This cannot be the approach when our own nationals are involved. I do not know how the claim that AFSPA has helped the Centre to fight militancy. If an independent assessment were to be made it would be found that if there was one piece of legislation which had made people to raise their standard of revolt, it was AFSPA. Manormas family members tell how the jawans dragged her out of the bed, beat up the family members when they tried to intervene and thrashed her brutally for almost half an hour. Is this the enforcement of the Act.
Partial amendment of AFSPA will not do. Untrammelled power is bad to whichever hand you give it. The solution is not to entrust anyone with unchecked power. It is bound to be misused. The operation of TADA and POTA shows that. What is comical is that even though TADA lapsed nine years ago, the detainees under it continue to stay behind the bars. The government has announced that POTA will go. The Left has also said so with all the flourish. Why was there not an Ordinance to repeal it on the day the government assumed power? A Bill will be passed by Parliament. I am sure of that. But what could have been done nearly eight weeks ago awaits formal legislation.
The problem is that whichever government is there it is the establishment that rules. It has its own norms which are not liberal. It has its own way of governance which is hurtful to people. Today it is POTA, tomorrow it will be something different. Home Minister Shiv Raj Patil says that some part of POTA has to be retained. Similarly, if and when AFSPA is amended, its teeth will remain. This is the refuge of the rulers in the system which has to stay democratic. Parties that come to power use it as a cover. The question which should be posed to them is: Whose country is it, any way?
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The Human Rights Commission in the states should see that the rights of people are protected. I have received complaints from Punjab that some officials in high and responsible position are not paying heed to the orders of the commission. This is unfortunate. Even the commission behaves strangely. A petitioner says that his case was disposed of even when there was no discussion in the matter and when there was no redress to Human Rights violation.
The Tribune, Chandigarh, India - Opinions