Early Times Report
srinagar, Feb 23: The JK Police Bill-2013, which is believed to confer special powers to police to deal with the abnormal situation, much before introduction and passage in the legislature, has started evoking reactions from different sections of the society.
According to sources, the bill, proposed to be tabled in the upcoming session of the State legislature, will enable the Government to declare an area as a Special Security Zone, as and when violence erupts in such area, may that be the violence due to communal clashes, terrorist strike or situation on account of other activities perceived as anti-national acts to an intolerable level. This, as per the provisions of the Bill, will be done through a notification that will confer special powers to the police to deal with the situation arisen out of the reasons mentioned above.
The civil rights activists see this as an extension or as just an alternative to the AFSPA. They believe that while on the one hand Government is pushing for the partial revocation of AFSPA, which confers special powers to Army, on the other hand it is proposing to confer special powers on police. "It will be just a change of guard…..", said an activist. The activists also feel that as there is no requirement of legal backing to declare the SSZs, it might lead to misuse of power on part of State. They argue that conferring extraordinary measures to security forces, as seen in the past, has led to gross violation of human rights. "Though I don't know about the provisions of the bill but if there is any truth that no legal backing is required to declare an area as SSZ then such a move is bound to be opposed," said another RTI activist and added that in almost all other States declaration of SSZs had to be ratified by the State legislatures.
The experts on security have also criticized move of creating SSZs. They argue that the idea of special, privileged enclaves, where extraordinary measures for security will be provided, is misconceived, and based on a misunderstanding of the challenges of terrorism, organized crime and law and order administration, which the proposed SSZs are intended to address. Such moves show that the Government is unable to recognize the fluidity and the use of technology by the terrorist outfits. Even a general review of recent trends in terrorism, an expert argued, would demonstrate the enormous dispersal and decentralization of operational networks. Creating SSZs would establish new and relatively stable jurisdictions within which a 'heightened' war against terrorism could be waged, neglecting the fluidity, and extraordinary mobility of contemporary terrorist and insurgent groups, and the expanding networks of organized crime. |
