Book talks of encounters, rights abuses in conflict zones

A new book documents the chilling moments of staged encounters and extra judicial killings in the country"s conflict zones and delves into several unforgettable cases over the years.
In "Blood on My Hands: Eyewitness Accounts of Staged Encounters", journalist Kishalay Bhattacharjee goes on to describe how these zones, particularly those in the northeast, have been witness to several such incidents in the past few decades.
The author uses information provided by various sources, including an anonymous army officer, about staged encounters, to "expose" the precarious human rights situation in the northeast and other regions.
Bhattacharjee claims that perhaps for the first time, "some of the perpetrators of this form of violence have narrated accounts of how they hunted down their prey".

"Their revelations of how the system has coerced and supported them in committing atrocities, then concealed and even rewarded acts of almost unthinkable depravity, are profoundly disturbing, and compel one to question the essential morality of civil government in India," he alleges.
The book also mentions about the alleged fake encounter in Machil sector of Jammu and Kashmir. The Army recently confirmed the sentence of six of its personnel including one of the rank of Colonel who was the Commanding Officer of the battalion that has been found guilty of planning and executing the fake encounter.

"In one of the fake encounter cases in Jammu and Kashmir which has more recently been brought to light, three young men were lured by promises of jobs as army porters and taken from Baramulla to Machil sector on the Line of Control (LOC). On 29 April 2010, they were shot and their faces mutilated to avoid identification," the book, published by HarperCollins India, says.

"This is considered routine in Kashmir, where the Indian State has managed to lose all authority besides that which is enforced by the gun," the author claims.
"In just three years, as many as 93 soldiers have been named in FIRs accusing them of rape, torture and killings. Very few have been prosecuted," he says.
The book deals in detail the infamous 'secret killings' in Assam in the late 1990s.
"One of the most brutal uses of irregular militia by the State occurred in the late 1990s in Assam. In 1991, the Assam government managed to ban the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) and bring a large number of senior cadres and leaders overground," it says.