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| NC forces House adjournment | | HR issue rocks assembly, CM defends forces | |
ET REPORTER
Srinagar, July 20: Noisy scenes were witnessed in the state legislative assembly today on the issue of human rights violations forcing adjournment of the House even the issues was debated upon and the Chief Minister made a statement on the issue when House met again.
When the State Legislative Assembly met this morning, the Opposition National Conference members were on their feet demanding a discussion on the human rights violations. The Speaker, however, did not allow the discussion which created ruckus in the House as the opposition refused to budge.
Later a discussion was allowed by the Speaker after which the Chief Minister made a reply dismissing the opposition allegations.
Earlier, the House witnessed noisy scenes after the ruling and main opposition National Conference (NC) members had a verbal clash.
The NC members were on their toes as the House assembled to take up the normal business of the House.
The leader of the opposition Abdul Rahim Rather said his adjournment notice on the alleged increase in the Human Rights (HR) situation be discussed before taking up any other business.
However, when the Speaker Tara Chand said he has admitted the notice and will allow discussion only after introduction of bills by the ministers, the NC members shouted slogans.
Mr Chand said the notice was received very late which could have been rejected. But, he said, since it was an important issue he admitted it and decided to allow a discussion so that Government could reply in the afternoon.
When the House met again the Speaker accepted the adjournment motion of the opposition leader Abdil Rahim Rather and a discussion was allowed on the issue of human rights violations.
Replying to the debate, the Chief Minister said that the rape and molestation rates in Kashmir were much lower than the national average and security forces were responsible for just four percent of such incidents. Molestation rate in Kashmir , however, is much higher than that of Jammu region.
The chief minister also said that no custodial death or disappearance had occurred in Kashmir division during this year and though "two incidents had been reported from Jammu region." Azad gave the credit of the situation moving back to normalcy to all the governments since 1996.
Azad said that people were experiencing a sense of security while reiterated that government was committed to zero tolerance. The chief minister, however, explained that zero tolerance did not mean that such acts can not occur and instead was a commitment by the government that erring security forces personal shall be acted upon.
Presenting a statistical data of the number of rape and molestation across India, the chief minister said that annual rate of rape in Jammu and Kashmir was 250 as compared to a whooping national average of 18000 cases per year. "In Madhya Pradesh alone, 300 cases occur per year while in Assam 1200 such cases are recorded each year," Azad said adding that security forces were responsible for only four percent of such cases.
"Molestation average in J&K is 950 cases per year as compared to a national average of 3500 cases," the chief minister continued. The chief minister, however, admitted that molestation rate in Kashmir was seven times higher than that of Jammu region.
Reacting to the allegations by opposition leaders that zero tolerance commitment was not being fulfilled and that Human Rights violations were rampant with enquires ordered to probe the cases yielding no results, Azad said that Human Rights violations were being raised only as an election issue.
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