AFSPA main cause of rights abuses

SRINAGAR (SANA): Human Rights activists have said the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), which gave armed forces a license to commit atrocities with impunity in the state, was the prime reason responsible for torture in the state.
 
“The laws like AFSPA send out a message to forces that they can do anything in the state and won’t be held accountable for their actions,” noted human rights activist Gautam Navlakha said at a seminar organized by People’s Rights Movement on International Day in support of Torture Victims.

 He said most of the cases of torture and abuses in the state were going unrecorded and there was a need for documenting them. In its latest report released on June 25, 2009, he said, the Asian Centre for Human Rights has put the number of torture cases in Kashmir from 1 April 2001 to 31 March 2009 at 7.

 “The ACHR has recorded only the torture cases wherein police was involved. But in Kashmir, most of the torture cases and abuses take place in the camps of Army, paramilitary troopers, and the Special Operations Group of police,” he said.

 Human rights lawyer and a civil rights activist Pervez Imroz said the civil society should speak for the victims of torture and a sustained campaign should be launched against the torture.

 “India should stop the torture and rights abuses in the state, as it is seeking a permanent berth in the United Nations Security Council,” he said.
 
He said the presence of armed forces in the state in itself was a torture for the people. “Torture in not only physical, it can also be mental.”

 Chairman of the People’s Rights Movement, Abdul Qadeer, said hundreds of people in Kashmir were tortured by the armed forces. “There are torture camps after every couple of kilometers in Kashmir. And many of them are infamous because of the brutal torture inflicted on people there. Not only did victims of torture suffer, but there families and relatives were also subjected to pain and agony.”

 On the occasion, several victims of torture also narrated their ordeal in the forces’ camps before the gathering and underlined the need for stopping it.

 “We should raise our voice against the torture otherwise our future generations would become its victim,” said a torture victim, Ghulam Muhammad Bhat of Varmul.