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| US-based rights group drops the brick | | In J&K, 'disappearances' are commonplace:HRW | | NEW DELHI, FEB. 16:
The government of India has been taken aback by the report of the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), charging that "disappearances" and "staged executions" in Jammu and Kashmir were commonplace. The HRW, in fact, has asked India to clean up its acts in Jammu and Kashmir.
Worse still, the Human Rights Watch, which is considered as a leading human rights group, has pronounced: “The Indian security forces have disappeared’ countless people in Jammu and Kashmir since 1989, and staged fake encounter killings while fabricating claims that those killed were militants”. According to informed sources, India's Minister for External Affairs, Pranab Mukherjee, who has been equipped with a copy of the HRW's report on J&K, is planning to discuss the "whole matter" with the Defence Minister, AK Antony, and Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Ghulam Nabi Azad.
The HRW listed the case of Abdul Rahman Paddar, a carpenter who went missing in December, sparking major protests. He was picked up in Kashmir’s summer capital, Srinagar, by a special police squad who branded him a Pakistani militant and claimed that he had been killed in an armed encounter. His body was exhumed along with four others last month, including a street vendor and a Muslim priest, who all “disappeared” last year.
Eight policemen, including two senior officers, have been arrested for the murders and a judicial inquiry ordered into the ”executions staged to look like self-defence”, the group said.Brad Adams, the group's Asia Director, was quoted as saying: “Recent revelations have confirmed what families in Kashmir have been alleging all along".
The Association of the Parents of Disappeared Persons in Jammu and Kashmir (APDP) alleges that more than 10,000 people are missing. The government admits to nearly 4,000 people, but says some may have crossed into Pakistan to join militant groups. HRW said that Indian security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, admitted fake encounter killings were common and even encouraged through gallantry citations or promotions.
“We welcome judicial inquiries into encounter killings, but given the government’s track record, there is reason to be sceptical”, Brad Adams was also quoted as saying. The Human Rights Watch has made half a dozen recommendations. First, the HRW urged the authorities to establish an independent commission. Second recommendation calls for strengthening and enforcing laws that protect detainees from torture.
Third recomendation: Establish a register of detainees accessible to lawyers and family members, and respond promptly to habeas corpus petitions in cases of disappearances. Recommendation number four: Take swift action against all officials in Jammu and Kashmir who obstruct or ignore judicial orders to produce detainees in court.
Recommendation number five: Grant the International Committee of the Red Cross access to all Army and paramilitary interrogation/detention centres. And recomendation number six: Ratify and implement the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, which India signed on February 6.
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