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ARMY WHITEWASHES PATHRIBAL ENQUIRY

India-the largest democracy in the world is not believed to support any form of violence and that it is a duty of the armed personnel to respect every human being and follow the path of justice and truth.

They must know that just by donning the uniform, they do not get any authoritative leeway to commit violence or killing, but rather they get a responsibility to protect people and not to harm them.

By Md. Mueenul Haque Qasmi the reality could not get focused on as importantly as it should have.

T

he Indian military forces whose primary role is to defend the country against external aggression and maintain it without fear or favour has turned into a barbaric force that kills its own people with imopunity and then exonerates itself as happened when it once again overruled the CBI and the Supreme Court recently in the Pathribal case.

No department could be thought good if it does not fulfill its essential duties. The common masses want three basic needs of their life maintained by the military forces— maintenance of law and order, justification for each separate act and to operate against foreign oppression. When they are wrongly used within the country to curb rebellion, they should not use excessive force and follow the rule

18 EASTERN CRESCENT | MARCH 2014

of law when its officers fall out of line.

More than a decade ago, five innocent Kashmiri civilians were killed in a fake encounter, when the then US President Bill Clinton was in India. They were Zahoor Ahmad Dalal (22), Bashir Ahmad Bhat (26), Mohammad Yousuf Malik (38), Juma Khan (50) and Juma Khan (38). They were described as foreign militants responsible for the massacre of 35 Sikhs in a remote village called Chatti singhpurah.

As usual, initially the media did not allow the case to come out with all its real hues for reasons of secrecy as also to shield the armed forces from culpability. The media only delivered its lip services. Consequently, the encounter remained sheilded from the public eye and the real face of

All the bodies were buried secretly without post-mortem to conceal their identities. The local inhabitants became suspicious and spoke out that if there had been any encounter, some soldiers surely would also have sustained injuries.

They began to protest demanding that the killed people were civilians slain in a fake encounter and all this was done to gain some gold medals.

Finally, after suffering from untold miseries and personal havoc.

The family members of the slain innocent civilians, facing the dilatory process of Indian courts were told that the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) would probe the case genuinely. In 2006, the CBI probed the case and ultimately indicted five army personnel, Brigadier Ajay Saksina, Lieutenant Colonel Brijender Partab Singh, Major Surav Sharma, Major Amit Saksena and Subedar Idris Khan.

The CBI also presented a charge sheet against these five soldiers before a Srinagar court.

The army challenged this case before J&K high court. And in March 2012, the army took over the case and challenged the Supreme

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Court’s verdict to either provide sanction of prosecution or to do court martial against its officers who were found guilty of the fake encounter.

But it is shameful that the army accepted neither of these options, but rather it argued that its officers cannot be charged without the Centre’s approval.

by Kashmiri family members.

However, now the various aspects of the Pathribal case offer an observer some clues as to why the soldiers are not different from animals in a land where the soldiers are entrusted with the defense of the country and its citizens. The blatant attitude taking root in the country’s armed forces is really a quite serious flouting of law and order and

A man offers his prayers to the deceased Pathribal and Brakpora victims near a graveyard in Brarangan.

According to the media report, this kind of heinous crime is not the only case that has come to light so far.

There have been more than 400 fake encounters that came into public scrutiny in J&K including rape and murder in the last two decades.

These are still waiting for the nod of the Centre to prosecute those troops alleged to have assassinated Kashmiri noncombatant innocent civilians.

According to another report, there are more than 2,000 unidentified people buried in mass graves at different sites in Kashmir. Many of them had been labeled as “foreign militants,” but the J&K State Human Rights Commission said that more than 500 bodies had been identified 19 EASTERN CRESCENT | MARCH 2014

actually the indisciplined army men were scofflaws. They snuffed out lives and charged them as guilty for crimes, which they did not commit.

It is surprising to know that the Indian government itself gave the army the power of impunity under which it does what it wants.

It gives troops the legal authority to shoot any person they suspect of being a risk and guarantees them immunity from prosecution.

To bring a soldier before a court requires the permission of India’s government.

In 1990, India extended to Kashmir Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) framed by the Home Affairs Ministry.

The AFSPA is the main draconian law that makes the army overrule

the Supreme Court--the most honorable and trusted independent bureau on Indian soil.

India—the largest democracy in the world—is not believed to support any form of violence and that it is a duty of the armed personnel to respect every human being and follow the path of justice and truth. They must know that just by donning the uniform, they do not get any authoritative leeway to commit violence or killing, but rather they get a responsibility to protect people and not to harm them. It is also one of their basic duties to believe that being a part of an Indian, committed to securing Indian’s borders must respect the investigation and instructions of central agencies as well as of the judiciary.

The core violent agenda of the Kashmir valley, now that crime rates are starting to go uphill, is the injustice of the government itself.

Indeed, the way justice is delivered cannot be just in a country that boasts of equality and democracy.

Unfortunately, the Indian government is not doing much to tackle this cynical mindset, hazardous to the country and its future. The government needs to amend its draconian law, implement new strategies, bring a transparent policing system that can and will give a message to the masses urging them to end the present confusion among them—all these without further delay. Else those of the Kashmir valley will have every reason to go on their militant ways and even become ripe for being lured towards terrorism.