India attempted to silence international critics of its human rights record during the year by using two radically different tactics. One was wooing foreign investors in India’s burgeoning market and stressing the advantages of business over pressure. The second was admitting that some abuses had taken place but insisting that Indian organizations, including a new Human Rights Commission, were well equipped to deal with them. Neither tactic led to major improvement in the human rights situation.
Abuses in the disputed territory of Kashmir continued to mount, particularly deaths of suspected militants in custody. Communal violence remained a problem, with police involvement in Hindu-Muslim clashes in Bangalore in October and discriminatory arrests of Muslims in Gujarat under a controversial law called the Terrorists and Disruptive Activities (TADA) law. The TADA law grants sweeping powers to local authorities to arrest and detain suspects, allows for lengthy pre-trial detentions, and reverses the presumption of innocence.
Two years after communal violence claimed more than 2,000 lives following the December 1992 destruction of a 16th century mosque by Hindu nationalists, to Human Rights Watch/Asia’s knowledge, no police officer identified as participating in attacks on Muslims had been prosecuted.
In Kashmir, Indian troops continued to execute detainees in custody, kill civilians in reprisal attacks, and burn down neighborhoods and villages as collective punishment of those suspected of supporting the militants. In the first half of 1994, human rights groups in Kashmir recorded more than 200 deaths in custody. The Jammu and Kashmir Bar Association reported 50 summary executions between mid- May and mid-June alone.
On May 9, for example, border Security Force (BSF) troops arrested and then shot dead three teenage boys in Bandhipora; Nisar Alunad Mri 13, Fayaz Ahmad Bhai, 16, and Irshad Ahmad Mir. 16. The killings were believed to be in retaliation for an attack five days earlier, in which militants had hurled a grenade at a BSF patrol.
Not a single soldier was prosecuted in a court of law or convicted for the murder or torture of a detainee. Army authorities did, however, make pub- lic a number of courts-martial of soldiers accused of rupe. On July 29, 1994, two soldiers were sentenced to 12 years in prison after being court martial for raping a village woman in Kashmir.
In August, India’s junior defense minister admitted that there had been 50 instances of soldiers killing civilians in India since the beginning of the year.
In May, and then again in October, Indian authorities released key Kashmiri opposition leaders from prison. The government then announced that elections would be held within eight months, despite objections by Kashmiri opposition parties who said they would boycott Indian- administered elections. The released prisoners included Yasin Malik, head of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, Abdul Gani Lone and Syed Ali Shah Gilani of the All Party Hurriyat, and Shabir Ahmed Shah of the People’s League. Shah was re- leased on October 14 after four years in detention under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act.
Militant factions were also responsible for abuses in Kashmir during the year, including the June 1994 kidnap- ping of two British tourists by a pro- Pakistani militant organization called the Harakatul Ansar (both men were released unharmed): the June 19 assassination of Dr. Qazi Nisar, a well- known religious leader, reportedly by the Hezb-ul Mujahidin, the most powerful of the groups that support accession to Pakistan, and the October kidnappings of three British and one American tourist by Al Hadid, a group Indian authorities said was based in Pakistan and Afghanistan and had links to Harakatul Ansar.
In Punjab, where militant violence had all but ended, police abuses continued, including the disappearance of prominent human rights lawyer in May. The press was also targeted. On January 11, eight employees of the Punjabi newspaper Aj Di Awaz, including the managing editor Gurdeep Singh, were arrested under the TADA law. Ten days before the arrests, Gurdeep Singh had been called to the officer of the assistant district police commissioner and ordered to refrain from criticizing state authorities.
The Indian government came under increasing international pressure to answer charges of abuse by Punjab’s police force. On September 16, India’s Supreme Court ordered a federal in- quiry into the disappearance in Punjab of seven members of one family in and
October 1991. Chief Justice M.N. Venkatachalliah criticized Punjab’s police chief, K.P.S. Gill, for inad equate investigation of the case expressed deep concern for the “safety of the citizenry at the hands of an errant, high-handed and unchecked police force.” Gill has been person- ally identified with many of the most serious abuses of human rights in Punjab.
Article extracted from this publication >> March 10, 1995
