Human right in rights in India continued to deteriorate Asia Watch
The human rights situation in India continued to deteriorate in 1991 amid unprecedented political turmoil, In November 1990, the minority government of V.P. Singh collapsed and was replaced by that of Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar, which then fell in March 1991, Parliamentary elections held in May and June saw the worst violence of any election since the country’s independence. Among those killed was former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, who died in a bomb explosion on May 20 while campaigning in the state of Tamil Nadu. In the wake of his assassination, local politicians threatened expel Sri Lankan refugees, and police in Tami lNadu arrested several thousand suspected members of the militant Sri Lankan separatist group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which was believed responsible for the killing. One suspect late died in custody under suspicious circumstances.
Human rights issues remained at the forefront of the political upheavals, as secessionist movements in the Border States of Punjab, Assam, and Jammu and Kashmir Continued to claim thousands of lives and led to widespread abuses by security “forces and armed militant groups. The Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act (TADA), among other security laws, were used widely in these states and throughout India to detain alleged militants and suspected supporters without charge or trial. Peaceful opponents of government policy were caught up in the TADA net. Government security forces and armed militants also committed grave violations Of the laws of war, including indiscriminate attacks on civilians.
In others states, including Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar, armed groups operating with the connivance and, in some cases, assistance of local police attacked and killed low caste villagers and peasant activists. In Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat, peaceful demonstrators protesting against large scale development projects were arrested and beaten as art of a government effort to censor information about human rights abuses and the environmental impact of such projects.
In Kashmir, India’s central government continued to pursue its brutal campaign against militant separatists despite growing criticism by international and domestic human rights groups. Throughout the year, the army and security forces routinely engaged in extrajudicial executions, disappearances, widespread torture, arbitrary arrest and prolonged detention without trial.
Its May 1991 report, Kashmir Under Siege, Asia Watch itself documented some two hundred extrajudicial executions of civilians and suspected militants by army and paramilitary forces in Kashmir since the beginning of 1990 a small portion of the estimated killing in this period. In many of the cases detailed in the report, oops opened fire on crowds of unarmed demonstrators, or in crowded markets and residential areas. Such violations continued through 1991 on May 8, at least fourteen mourners in a funeral procession were killed when government forces opened fire on a crowd of three thousand at a Srinagar cemetery. According to press reports, when mourners returned to the scene to collect the bodies, the troops again opened fire, killing a teenage boy.
To date, Asia Watch is unaware of any conviction of a member of the Indian security forces for any human rights violation in Kashmir. Indeed, the rape of women in the village of Kunan Poshpora by army soldiers of the Forth Rajputana Rifles became the focus of a campaign to acquit the army of charges of human rights violations and discredit those who brought the charges. The rapes allegedly occurred during search operation for the night of February 23 in which the men were taken away from their homes and interrogated. Villagers complained fist local army officials and then to the local magistrate, who visited the village and fled a report that included the statements of twenty three women who claimed to have been raped.
Publicity about the incident in the national press provoked strong denials by army officials. On March 17, a fact finding delegation headed by Chief Justice Mutt Bahauddin Farooqi interviewed fifty three worsen when had mete: allegations of rape and tuned to determine why a police investigation into the incident had never taken place. Faroogi reportedly stated that he “had never seen a case in which normal investigative procedures were ignored as they were ignored as they were in this cone.” However, & confidential report filed by a local official, the divisional commissioner, concluded that the allegations leveled against the army cannot be believed and have apparently been made by villagers as an afterthought under pressure from the militants.” A police investigation, ordered into the incident was never carried out because the assistant super intendant assigned to the case was transferred before he could start.
In response to criticism about the government’s investigation, the army requested the Press Council of India to investigate the incident. The committee members visited in June, more than three months after the incident occurred. After interviewing a number of the alleged victims, the committee concluded that contradictions in the women’s testimony rendered the charge of rape” baseless.” Examinations conducted on thirty two of the women on March 15 and 21 confirmed that the women had abrasions on the chest and abdomen, and that the hymens of Far and away the biggest cause of human rights violation in the region was war, Annual death tolls of civilians were in the thousands in Kashmir, Punjab and Sri Lanka. In Sri Lanka, the scale of the conflict approached conventional warfare with five thousand guerrillas of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam laying siege to an army post in July. Both sides engaged in summary executions, torture and disappearances. In Punjab and Kashmir, Indian security forces retaliated against whole villages and neighborhoods for ambushes by militants, and suspected guerrillas were arrested, tortured and often killed in custody.
Article extracted from this publication >> February 28, 1992
