DNA:
New Delhi: Thursday, 02 July 2015.
Concluding
that accountability was still missing for human rights violations in Jammu and
Kashmir, a leading international civil rights watchdog here on Wednesday said
even after 56 years of enactment of Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA),
there has been no attempt to frame rules for its operationalisation.
"There has been no subordinate legislation or no statutory rules to
operate the AFSPA," said Amnesty International researchers, while
releasing a report 25-years of the AFSPA in Jammu and Kashmir.
Further,
while the Disturbed Area Act (DAA), which enables operationalisation of the
AFSPA has to undergo a mandatory review after every six months, the Amnesty has
found that governments have hardly followed this legal recourse.
The 72-page
report, titled 'Denied: Failures in accountability for human rights violations
by security force personnel in Jammu and Kashmir' has analysed the legality of
the AFSPA and also documented over 100 cases of human rights violations
committed between 1990 and 2013. It also contains 58 case studies of alleged
excesses by the armed forces in the state.
"One of
the primary facilitators of impunity is the existence of Section 7 of the AFSPA
under which security forces are protected from prosecution for alleged human
rights violations. This legal provision mandates prior executive permission
from central or state authorities for prosecution of a member of the security
forces," the report reads.
Citing many
instances where its RTI applications failed to get a response, Amnesty has also
called for making the information about the cases pertaining to human rights
violations in Jammu and Kashmir public.
While the
report acknowledges progress on a few cases like the Machil "fake"
encounter, where five soldiers were sentenced to life imprisonment, the report
concludes that most cases involving areas where AFSPA is used go
un-investigated. "The convictions in the Machil case were a welcome
measure. But for justice to be consistently delivered, security force personnel
accused of human rights violations should be prosecuted in civilian
courts," said Divya Iyer, research manager, Amnesty International.