The Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), imposed in Jammu and Kashmir for the past 25 years, continues to feed a cycle of impunity for human rights violations, says an Amnesty International India report, released on Wednesday.
Amnesty International said the report, 'Denied: Failures in accountability for human rights violations by security force personnel in Jammu and Kashmir', has documented the obstacles to justice faced in several cases of human rights violations, believed to have been committed by Indian security force personnel in the state.
The organisation said its report focuses particularly on Section 7 of the Armed Forces (Jammu & Kashmir) Special Powers Act, 1990, which grants "virtual immunity" to members of the security forces from prosecution for alleged human rights violations.
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Present Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed was Union minister for home affairs, when the AFSPA was enacted by Parliament in 1990, he said. "He now has a historic opportunity to work to remove this oppressive law," Pimple said.
The report, the NGO claimed, was based on interviews with 58 family members of victims of alleged human rights violations by security forces, Right to Information applications, examination of police and court records, and interviews with civil society groups, lawyers, and government officials. The report claimed the central government denied permission, or "sanction", to prosecute under section 7 of the AFSPA in every case brought against members of the army or paramilitary, or in a small number of cases, has kept the decision pending for years. The report claimed to have also documented a lack of transparency in the sanction process.
Mohammad Amin Magray, uncle of 17-year-old Javaid Ahmad Magray, who was killed in April 2003 by security force personnel, told Amnesty International India, said. "If the army knew they would be charged, and will have to go to court and be prosecuted, they will think ten times before they pull the trigger on an innocent…The AFSPA is a like a blank cheque from the government of India to kill innocents like my nephew".
According to the report, many families interviewed said AFSPA also provided immunity for security personnel indirectly. Nearly 100 cases of human rights violations filed by families of victims between 1990 and 2012 showed the J&K Police often failed to register complaints or take action on registered complaints until they were compelled, said Amnesty's research manager Divya Iyer. "In some cases, army personnel have been reluctant or refused to cooperate with police investigations," she said.
The army dismissed that more than 96 per cent of the allegations of human rights violations against its personnel in Jammu & Kashmir as "false or baseless", the report has stated. In a rare exception, in November 2014, the army had revealed that a court martial had convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment five soldiers for shooting and killing three men in a 'fake encounter' - a staged extrajudicial execution - at Machil in 2010.
But the report argued that culprits should be prosecuted in civilian courts. "Impunity only breeds further violence and alienation, making it more difficult to combat abuses by armed groups," Iyer said.
Not just Sayeed, but his predecessor Omar Abdullah had demanded a repeal of AFSPA. In 2011, the home ministry had constituted a three-member team of interlocutors, which had also recommended the gradual withdrawal of AFSPA. However, the army has resisted such a move pointing out operational difficulties.
The international human rights watchdog claims to be funded "mainly by contributions from individual supporters".