According to reoprts, taking cognisance of the killing of Muhammad Shafi, Shehzad Ahmed and Riyaz Ahmed, all residents of Nadihal, Rafiaabad in a fake encounter by the Indian army on April 30, New York-based Human Rights Watch has said the fake encounter underscores the urgency for the Indian government to repeal the AFSPA.
The Indian military said the victims were rebels who were killed when it foiled an infiltration by militants along the Line of Control, the de facto border that divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan.
But the victims’ families said they were innocent civilians who had been abducted by the army three days before the supposed battle on April 30.
The army has suspended an officer and removed another from his command, pending enquiries into the killings.
“If the army is serious about punishing those responsible for this latest incident, it will transfer the suspects to the police for trial in a civilian court,” Meenakshi Ganguly, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, said late Tuesday.
“Given the army’s poor record in holding its soldiers accountable, there is no reason to believe that a military court can be trusted to deliver justice,” she said.
Ganguly added that the AFSPA gives soldiers wide powers to shoot, arrest and search suspects, and is widely detested by Kashmiris.
She said the army officers implicated in two other cases of fake gun battles in 2000 and 2007 were never handed over to the police for arrest and prosecution.
Quoting the Pathribal case in 2000, she said that the Central Bureau of Investigation filed murder charges against five army officers – Brig Ajay Saxena, Lt-Col Brajendra Pratap Singh, Maj Saurabh Sinha, Maj Amit Saxena and Subedar Idrees Khan – for their role in abducting and killing five villagers in a staged armed encounter.
The army challenged the charges under AFSPA since federal government approval had not been sought before the charges were filed. Court proceedings in the case still drag on, and none of the accused have been taken into custody or brought before a judge.
According to media accounts, some of the accused have continued to serve in the army and received promotions.
In 2007, five alleged militants killed in a joint operation in Ganderbal by the police and the army later proved to be civilians who had been abducted and murdered.
Although charges were filed against the police officers involved, the army officers implicated were not handed over to the police for arrest and prosecution.
Muslim-majority Kashmir is in the grip of a 20-year-old insurgency against Indian rule that has so far left more than 47,000 people dead by an official count.
Published in the Express Tribune, June 10th, 2010.
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