What continues to remain amiss in the Indian legislations is the definition, and subsequent condemnation of torture by public officials. A right against torture is nothing but an affirmation of Right to Life under Article 21. However, enforcing fundamental rights is a much more tedious task than invoking the provisions of the specific law, which is always more accessible. Thus arises the question why India has not yet ratified the UN Convention against Torture and why there is no law adhering to the same.

On July 20, Lok Sabha member Ritesh Pandey of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) questioned the Ministry of Home Affairs on whether it plans to rehabilitate Rohingya Muslims seeking refuge in India and whether denying them legal status is in contravention to any UN treaties or convention that it has ratified.

The Ministry responded that Rohingyas were illegal migrants and hence they pose a threat to the nation, while there also being reports of them indulging in illegal activities. The question also pertained to whether denying rehabilitation to these refugees violated the UN Convention Against Torture (UNCAT) or the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The Ministry conceded that while India had signed UNCAT, it had not ratified it, and it did accede to ICCPR in 1979.

The answer given in Lok Sabha may be read here:

The UNCAT or the UN Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment was the result of many years’ work, initiated soon after the adoption of the Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Being Subjected to Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (the “Torture Declaration”). India signed it but did not ratify it. This means that a representative of India at that time signed the document but the same has not been affirmed by the State (nation) in order for it to be binding as per international law. Thus, UNCAT cannot be invoked at any international fora against any activities that come under the definition of torture or cruelty in the country.

How does the issue of refuge seeking Rohingyas from Myanmar being declared as illegal migrants connect with the convention against torture? In simple terms, when a person is found to be an illegal migrant, law states that they can be confined to a place by the government which usually translates to detention camps. The conditions of detention camps and the way these non-citizens are to be treated is not governed by any law and thus human rights come into play. Any country that is run by a democratically elected government cannot be averse to safeguarding human rights. Thus, India’s non-ratification of UNCAT in 1997 is quite appalling.

Why is UNCAT such a big deal?

To begin with, for any international convention that a country signs, it has to indicate to the related Committee what measures it has taken to bring to effect the undertakings of the convention. Thus, ratifying the UNCAT would mean that India would have had to take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture.

The undertakings prescribed under UNCAT require the State to ensure that its authorities make investigations when there is reasonable ground to believe that an act of torture has been committed and to ensure that acts of torture are serious criminal offences within its legal system. Most importantly, and the one undertaking that remains pertinent is that the State cannot expel or extradite a person to a State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture. It is extremely important to delineate here the 2019 amendment to the Citizenship Act which eases up grant of citizenship to non-Muslim communities from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh and the motive behind it was that they seek refuge here due to religious persecution. The same rationale when not implied to Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar where they are being persecuted due to their religion and are being subjected to torture, shows a clear bias of the government and its selective adherence to human rights.

What if India ratified UNCAT?

Ratifying UNCAT would mean that India would have had to pass the Prevention of Torture Bill that was first introduced by the UPA II government in 2010. The bill defined torture as: an act by a public servant or by a persons with acquiescence of a public servant, causes grievous hurt or danger to life, limb or health (whether mental or physical). It proposed punishment of minimum 3 years which may be extended to 10 years and fine, for torture inflicted for purpose of extorting confession, or for punishing or on the ground of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, caste or community or any other ground.

The 273rd Law Commission report released in 2017 suggested, among other things, payment of compensation to victims of torture keeping in mind socio-economic background of the victim, nature, purpose, extent and manner of injury, including mental agony caused to the victim such as the amount suffices the victim to bear the expenses on medical treatment and rehabilitation. The Commission had also observed that tolerance of police atrocities, amounts to acceptance of systematic subversion and erosion of the rule of law and that it is not permissible whether it occurs during investigation, interrogation or otherwise.

India’s refusal to ratify UNCAT and its unwillingness to have any law that condemns torture only makes its fealty to the doctrine of sovereign immunity apparent. The doctrine of sovereign immunity is a concept of common law principle consistently followed in British jurisprudence in last several centuries that ‘King commits no wrong’ and has evolved on the principle of sovereignty that a State cannot be sued in its own court.

The courts’ take on torture

In D.K. Basu v. State of West Bengal AIR 1997 SC 610, the Supreme Court had observed, “Torture has not been defined in the Constitution or in other penal laws. ‘Torture’ of a human being by another human being is essentially an instrument to impose the will of the ‘strong’ over the ‘weak’ by suffering. The word torture today has become synonymous with the darker side of the human civilisation”.

The judgement may be read here:

In Raghubir Singh v. State of Haryana 1980 AIR 1087 , a case where the violence employed by the police to extract a confession resulted in death of a person suspected of theft, the court had passed severe remarks “We are deeply disturbed by the diabolical recurrence of police torture resulting in terrible scare in the minds of common citizens that their lives and liberty are under a new peril when the guardians of law gore human rights to death.”

The judgement may be read here:

In another case, State of U.P. v. Ram Sagar Yadav 1985 AIR 416, the Supreme Court dealt with a case where the policemen murdered one Brijlal who not only refused to pay a bribe of Rs.100 in a trivial matter of cattle trespass but also complained about demand of bribe to senior police officers. The Court observed that “Police officers alone and none else can give evidence as regards the circumstances in which a person in their custody comes to receive injuries while in their custody… The result is that persons on whom atrocities are perpetrated by the police in the sanctum sanctorum of the police station are left without any evidence to prove who the offenders are.” The Court recommended that the “law as to the burden of proof in such cases may be re-examined by the legislature so that handmaids of law and order do not use their authority and opportunities for oppressing the innocent citizens who look to them for protection.”

The judgement may be read here:

Torture and Indian laws

The only record that is indicative of torture is the number of custodial deaths released every year in Crimes in India report released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) annually. However, death in judicial or state’s custody is an extremely poor measure of torture even if custodial deaths are always met with impunity of the officials, without much ado. Naturally, this is because there is no law in place to enforce criminal cases against agents of the government.

The UNCAT defines torture as “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.”

While there are some safeguards against torture in Indian law, they are seldom taken seriously and enforced. For instance, section 54 of Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) extends safeguard against any infliction of custodial torture and violence by providing for examination of arrested person by medical officer and section 176 of the Code provides for compulsory magisterial inquiry on the death of the accused in police custody.

It can be unequivocally said that a democratic country ought to safeguard human rights and thus cannot be tolerant of any form of torture to human life. It takes an accountable and responsible government to recognize the iniquities within its system with the clear intent of upholding basic human rights as well as the right to life enshrined under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution.

Law Commissions have over the years pushed for a legislation penalizing torture by public officials but the discourse around it has died down and needs to be reinvigorated as a fight for human rights.

The UN Convention against Torture may be read here:

Related:

Prevention of torture Bill – the forgotten law
Ratify Convention Against Torture, Enact Prevention of Torture Bill, 2017: Law Commission
Ratify the convention against custodial torture: SC Adv Nitya Ramakrishnan
Genesis of Rights against handcuffs in India

The post Why has India still not ratified UN Convention against torture? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

First Published on 07 Dec 2019

On December 4, Abdul Wahab of Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) about India being signatory to UN Convention against Torture and also sought data on number of custodial deaths in each state. He further asked if the government had a proposal to introduce a legal framework for custodial deaths.

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), with regards to the UN convention responded as follows:

“The UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment prescribes that each State shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measure to prevent acts of torture. The offences of causing hurt or grievous hurt to extort confession are punishable under sections 330 and 331 of the Indian Penal Code.”

About having a legal framework, the MHA said that the 273rd Report of the Law Commission and the draft of ‘The Prevention of Torture Bill, 2017’ has been considered by the government, along with comments from State government and that the ‘government is seized of the matter’.

The Prevention of Torture Bill

The objective of the proposed law is to ‘provide punishment for torture inflicted by public servants or any person inflicting torture with the consent or acquiescence of any public servant…’

The bill mentions that India is a signatory to United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

The bill defines torture as an act by a public servant or by a person with acquiescence of a public servant, causes grievous hurt or danger to life, limb or health (whether mental or physical).

 The draft of the bill was also provided by the Law Commission in its report and there some provisions that have not been included in the bills as tabled in the Parliament. The report had included, “where torture in custody of a public servant is proved, the burden of proving that the torture was not intentionally caused or, abetted by or was not with the consent or acquiescence of such public servant, shall shift to the public servant.”

The Commission’s draft had also provided for punishment of death or imprisonment for life for causing death of person in custody. The draft had also provided for compensation to the victim

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Just a few days ago, the Supreme Court issued directions to all states and Union Territories (UT) to comply with its December 2020 order of installing CCTV cameras in all police stations and investigation agencies. Through its order dated March 2, the top court also expressed its displeasure as both the Centre and the states/UTs failed to take the matter seriously.

A Bench comprising Justices Rohinton Fali Nariman, BR Gavai and Hrishikesh Roy said, “We reiterate that these are the matters of utmost importance concerning the citizens of this country under Article 21 of the Constitution of India.” 

On December 2, 2020, the top court had passed a detailed and specific order directing states and the Centre to take concrete steps towards ensuring that every police station in the country and all investigating agencies have CCTV cameras in their premises. The court had also sought action plan affidavits from all states within 6 weeks to ensure that the states are doing their bit to end custodial torture.

Dalit activist Shiv Kumar, recently released on bail, is a case in point when it comes to discussions over custodial torture. According to a report in The Telegraph, Kumar is now under treatment in hospital for injuries caused allegedly by police torture in custody. Kumar is undergoing treatment at the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh.

Shiv Kumar, President of Mazdoor Adhikar Sangathan, Kumar was arrested on January 16, a few days after the arrest of Nodeep Kaur, for allegedly violently protesting the harassment of factory workers in the Kundli Industrial Area in Sonipat on January 12. He was granted bail by a local Sonipat court in all three cases registered against him. He was granted bail in two cases registered under extortion charges on March 3, and in connection with the third FIR on March 4. The  24-year-old labour rights activist told The Telegraph that he would take the police up on a threat against ever setting foot in Kundli again. “While in their custody, police warned me never to be seen in Kundli if I am released or they would pick me up again. But I shall go back. Workers have to fight for their rights because the police are a tool in the hands of the capitalists and we can’t expect justice from them,” he told TT. According to the news report, Kumar’s injuries include “broken toenail beds, fractures and symptoms of post-traumatic disorder”.

He says he “was abducted, not arrested,” and that the police “suddenly pounced on me and took me away. I remember being taken into the Criminal Investigation Agency-1 (police unit) in Sonipat’s Gur Mandi. From January 16 to 23, I was constantly hit with sticks, abused and humiliated referring to my caste. I was not allowed to sleep. They were inhuman. They were always in plainclothes. None offered me first aid.” 

He further alleged he was “beaten and then shown videos of the protest (on January 12) and asked to identify people. I asked them how I could identify people when I was not there. At the time, I was at the Singhu border protest. People have taken footage of me at Singhu border. They would keep hitting me on my toes with lathis. They did all kinds of brutality and I was constantly in pain.”

The Telegraph reports that Kumar’s statement recorded by the board says, “They tied both his feet, lay him on the ground, and hit him on the soles. His 2nd, 3rd and 5th toe nails of the right foot were torn and the nail of the big toe of the left foot became blue. They also hit him on the buttocks with flat sticks, then they tied his hands and stretched his legs. He was made to lie on the ground with both legs straight and a metal pipe was placed on his thigh and rolled over the thighs by two people. They also hit him on both hands and palms and also on the back of his head. He was not allowed to sleep for three days, the C.l staff took his statement and asked him to give names and when he could not do so. They tied him to a chair and poured water to his head… He was mentally and physically abused in the police remand and they also poured hot water on his feet and any blisters that formed were burst by them.”

Nodeep Kaur told SabrangIndia that she met Shiv Kumar when he was released and said, “He was in a bad shape that day, but is better today. He is still under treatment at the hospital.” According to the TT news report, Shiv Kumar has said that from January 29 to January 31, he was taken to various places. He said, “I was first taken to Samalkha police station in Panipat district, then to some other police post in that district. At night they took me to some restaurant on a highway and handcuffed me while they drank liquor and made merry. The next morning we went to Haridwar where I was kept in an ashram all day while the policemen were again drinking. I was not questioned on this trip. They were busy partying.” 

The report added that the cops, on the way back to Sonipat the next day, they stopped to see a relative of a policeman in Uttar Pradesh’s Baghpat district. Kumar was sent to judicial custody in Sonipat’s district jail, on February 2. He alleged that he was “scared to ask anyone for help in jail after what the police had done to me. No doctor examined me nor was I offered any first aid.”

Related:

CCTV cameras in Police stations: SC discontent with Centre, States and UTs
Orissa High Court directs state to pay Rs. 5 lakhs for negligence causing custodial death
Kutch: Man allegedly killed in police custody, accused cops absconding
End Custodial Torture: SC’s new comprehensive directions on CCTVs in police stations
Will CCTV cameras and audio video records help curb police brutality?
TN custodial death report indicts police, hospital staff and jail authorities
Disarray in Odisha over custodial violence cases

The post Dalit activist Shiv Kumar says he was tortured in Haryana jail appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The report was released by the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS), an amalgam of research and advocacy organisations based in Srinagar, and the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP), an advocacy seeking to end involuntary and enforced disappearances in Kashmir, in February 2019. Torture qualifies as a war crime as per the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the Geneva Conventions.

The report, endorsed by former United Nations (UN) special rapporteur Juan E Mendez, accuses the Indian state of violating international human rights law by practicing torture against civilians, destroying property such as homes, and causing widespread psychological distress.

“For the worldwide struggle against torture, this report will constitute a landmark,” Mendez wrote. “It is to be hoped that it will be an example to other civil society organizations in India and in other countries, as a model for dispassionate and precise language, even when discussing tremendously tragic suffering.”

Jammu and Kashmir is considered among the most militarised regions in the world, indicative of an alarming human rights situation. JKCCS estimates that 650,000-750,000 Indian troops are present in the state; Ajai Shukla, a defence expert, contested those numbers in July 2018, estimating the number to be 470,000 instead.

Another 38,000 were deployed in early August 2019, bringing the presence between 700,000 and 800,000–more than one armed forces personnel per 15 civilians, as per JKCCS’s figures.

On August 29, 2019, the BBC reported that civilians in Kashmir had complained of being tortured by the Indian security forces since the abrogation of Article 370 on August 5, 2019.

The JKCCS report relates to the period between 1990 and 2017. Its release comes at a time when Union home minister Amit Shah, on August 28, 2019, suggested that the police do away with the age-old third-degree torture and adopt new, more scientific methods of investigation.

However, the report has received no coverage in the mainstream Indian media. The two largest newpapers in India, The Times of India in English and the Hindi Dainik Jagran, with a combined readership of nearly 90 million, have not covered the report to date, despite reporting on allegations of torture carried out by the Indian security forces and publishing more than 3,000 stories on Jammu and Kashmir this year, an IndiaSpend analysis has shown.

The home ministry, The Times of India, and Dainik Jagran did not respond to emails for comment sent on August 25 and 29, 2019. This story will be updated when they do.

Some experts view the report as indicative of a general disregard for Kashmiris’ human rights, particularly since Article 370 was removed. “Given what has happened since August 5 [the abrogation of Article 370], what rights? What humans? The way they’re being treated, the very idea of human rights for the people of Kashmir is an absurd farce,” said Nitasha Kaul, associate professor of politics and international relations, University of Westminster, London. She is of Kashmiri origin.

Others said the report must be seen in the perspective of the situation across India.

“I don’t think this [torture] is a special practice of the Indian state in Kashmir,” Manoj Joshi, distinguished fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, a New Delhi-based think-tank, told IndiaSpend. “It is well known that torture is widely used by police forces across the country. Of course, it does not serve the interests of the Indian state. To the contrary, it negatively impacts it.”

Key findings
Among the report’s findings: 27 of the 432 cases studied (6.25%) made it to the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC), of which 20 received favourable recommendations; in 2017, the state government accepted seven of the 44 compensation recommendations the commission made. The government has accepted 58 of the 229 recommendations (25%) made by the commission since 2009.

The report alleges that armed forces in Kashmir are responsible for the destruction of civilian property and life, alongside causing significant psychological distress due to the practice of torture.

Purposes
In 1993, Mohammad Shafi Hajam, a barber from Anantnag, was questioned by armed forces regarding the whereabouts of weapons, the report documents. Despite initially denying any knowledge, following extensive torture, he revealed the location to be a ditch near his shop. The next day, the army made all surrounding inhabitants including Hajam enter the ditch, filled with human refuse, to find the weapons. Upon not finding anything, an army officer slammed Hajam’s head onto a rock, causing him to lose a few teeth. He was subsequently taken back to the camp and continued to be tortured, the report added.

Based on the responses of each case, the report found three major reasons why people were tortured: as a punitive measure (50 victims, 12% of the total), a method to gain information, mainly about militants (118 victims, or 27%), and a means to elicit confessions (11 victims).

Some victims said they provided false information to their interrogators just for respite.

Methods

One of the victims documented by the report, from Anantnag, said he was doused in petrol and set on fire. Another, Bashir Ahmad, claimed that boiling water was poured on his back.

Torture methods documented in the report include physical brutalisation, waterboarding, sleep deprivation, starvation; and being forced to remain in uncomfortable positions such as aeroplane posture, burned, coerced to ingest contaminated substances and get in unhygienic contact with animals. All of these count as war crimes as per ICC rulings.

Some 326 of the 432 victims studied reported being beaten by sticks, rods and belts. Another 93 people claimed that they were physically brutalised, including the smashing of glass bottles on their faces. One person reported being kicked down a hill.

At least 80 victims had been tortured during cordon and search operations (CASOs), which have been globally condemned by groups such as Human Rights Watch (here) and Amnesty International (here).

Civilian victims
Nearly 70% or 301 of the total victims studied were civilians, of which 258 had no political affiliations. Twenty were political activists, six were students, three journalists, two human rights activists, and 12 associated with the Jamaat-e-Islami, a politico-religious activist group banned by the government in March 2019 for its “close touch” with militant outfits.

Civilians were mainly targeted for information regarding militants, or in response to militant activity in neighbouring areas, the report said.

Nearly 119 victims were militants (28%) and five were former militants (1%). Two members of the Jammu and Kashmir Police were found to have been tortured.

In the cases where militants were tortured, the report stated that most of the cases of arrest were not registered with the local police on the day of arrest. Doing so is a requirement under point six of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA).

In 32 cases, the report found that the families of the victims were targeted in addition to the victim. Article 3 of the Geneva Convention states that those “taking no active part in the hostilities” must be treated “humanely,” specifically prohibiting “violence to life and person” and “outrages upon personal dignity”. The principle is also mentioned in the ICC guidelines regarding war crimes.

Further, 27 of the 432 victims studied were minors, of which one was female. From a total of 1,086 juvenile detentions from September 2013 to April 2017, 623 (57%) were for pelting stones, the report found.

Lasting effects on victims
At least 222 victims of the total 432 (51.4%) reported health complications from being tortured–209 reported chronic health problems, frequent aches, fatigue and sexual impotency; 49 reported acute chronic ailments such as cardiac issues, nephrological problems, internal organ injuries and amputations. All 222 victims said they had been bearing the costs of healthcare by themselves, without any compensation or support.

Sixteen victims reported dislocated joints, in addition to 15 respondents who had suffered fractures. Three people had to undergo amputations after being tortured. One victim, Mohammad Qalandar Khatana, said that he was forced to eat the cut flesh of his buttocks, after which his legs were broken. He wasn’t provided with any medical assistance. While imprisoned, his legs got infected by maggots, following which they had to be amputated.

At least 49 (11.34%) victims died during or after torture, of which 40 died due to injuries sustained due to being tortured, such as ruptured lungs, and a perforated liver and intestines. Eight were shot dead after being tortured, whereas another one was poisoned.

Around 42 (18.9%) victims suffered from various psychological disorders after being tortured, including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, insomnia, and dementia, according to the report.

Earlier, a mental health survey undertaken in December 2015 by Medecin Sans Frontiers (Doctors Without Borders) said that 19% of Kashmir’s population showed several symptoms of PTSD; 45% of the population, or 1.8 million adults, in the Kashmir Valley suffered from significant mental distress; 1.6 million or 41% exhibited symptoms of severe depression.

Victims often poor

Aside from the physical and mental impacts of torture, a significant facet of torture is its economic brutality, as the victims are often underprivileged, the report said. The wife of one victim, Din Mohammad, met the initial costs of her husband’s treatment by begging for money in 1999.

Many victims it documented were manual labourers, who were unable to resume their occupation due to the significant physical distress caused by torture, the report said. At least 31 victims reported an inability to perform any physically exhausting labour; almost all of them previously farmers or manual labourers.

At least 36 victims (8.3%) and their families lived in abject poverty because of the loss of livelihood or the death of the breadwinner of the family, the report said. Four families have subsequently died due to their dire situation.

Twenty five cases also involved the payment of bribes ranging from Rs 5,000 to Rs 2 lakh to various agencies to secure the release of their loved ones, or to protect families from relentless harassment.

Report ignored by mainstream Indian media
In February 2017, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) compiled a report stating the necessity to “control” the mosque, madrassa, print and TV media to enact effective “perception management”, The Indian Express reported. The report listed TV channels and newspapers as pro- and anti-India, recommending that the former be promoted while the latter “discouraged”.

The Indian Army’s doctrine on sub-conventional operations of 2006 notes that such operations are “essentially information campaigns”, emphasising the importance of the government, the security forces and the civilian population understanding the campaign in the “correct perspective”. This makes the role of the media critical.

The JKCCS report acknowledged that the primary challenge while researching torture is under-reporting, due to the reluctance of victims to reveal details, and the political hurdles faced by journalists. The Indian government has repeatedly withheld permission from several journalists who wished to work in Kashmir; Greater Kashmir reported on one such prominent instance in August 2019.

“The Indian government is interested in perception-management, not in actually finding a solution, because the dominant lens with which they see Kashmir is an Islamophobic one, and because their own idea of India is to capture the state and convert it into a Hindu nation, in line with the Hindutva ideology,” said Kaul.

“To call it a perception-management strategy is perhaps to overstate it, because the emperor has no clothes. The situation is clear to everyone globally, outside the hypernationalist Indian televisual bubble. India’s narrative has no ground to stand on anymore,” Kaul added.

As we said, despite the report on torture being the first ever comprehensive documentation on the subject, the dominant media in India have not covered it to date.

The Times of India, the largest English-language newspaper of the country with a readership of 15.2 million, despite publishing one story almost every two days on the state, did not cover the report. In 109 stories covering Jammu and Kashmir as listed on their website, over eight months between the start of 2019 and August 27, the word ‘torture’ was mentioned only four times. The word appeared four times in a single story, which covered the Indian Army denouncing allegations of torture and excesses committed by the Indian security forces by Shehla Rashid, member of the Jammu and Kashmir’s People’s Movement, as “baseless” and “unverified”.

Similarly, Dainik Jagran, the largest newspaper in India with a readership of 73.6 million, published 3,296 stories on Jammu and Kashmir from January 2019 to late August 2019–almost 14 stories per day, but did not cover the report released on torture. However, it also covered Shehla Rashid’s allegations, on August 19 and August 20, and the case filed against her for doing so.  

Coverage of Jammu and Kashmir, per se, spiked during August 2019, the month in which the abrogation of Article 370 was announced, for both these newspapers, our analysis shows.

“In all of this, the signs of optimism and prospects for peace is the humanity and resilience of the Kashmiri people. Prospects for peace can only come from millions of people who are going to read, think, know and understand what cannot and must not happen,” Kaul said.

No government action on previous reports
In June 2018, after protests erupted following the killing of Burhan Wani, a 22-year-old commander of the Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) terrorist outfit, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) at the United Nations released a report on the human rights situation in Kashmir for the first time.

The security forces had killed 130-145 civilians between July 2016 and March 2018, in addition to 16-20 killed by militant groups, the report noted. In a subsequent report published in July 2019, the UN body reported that the security forces had blinded 1,253 people with the use of metal pellets from mid-2016 to the end of 2018. The government had detained over 1,000 people between March 2016 and August 2017 under the Public Safety Act (PSA).

The OHCHR said it had asked India for access to Kashmir to monitor the human rights situation, but the government had unconditionally refused.

“India has not allowed international monitors since it views Kashmir as an internal issue,” Joshi said, adding, “Second, it would be embarrassed by the findings.”

Some 4,000 people have been detained in the state since the abrogation of Article 370, The Hindu reported on August 18, 2019. The Public Safety Act violates several clauses of international human rights law, an Amnesty International report of June 2019 showed.

“Where else do you have protestors being blinded by pellet guns, or an entire region being collectively punished by a siege? They [the Indian State] are doing it [blocking international monitors] because they can,” said Kaul.

Earlier, in 2016, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), a US-based human rights NGO that documents human rights violations around the world, reported that the Indian state had obstructed access to medical care for protestors, prevented medical officials from treating injured protestors, and intimidated doctors and patients at the hospital. Security forces had destroyed 200 ambulances in the same year, another JKCCS report had found.

Denying civilians access to humanitarian aid or attacking humanitarian workers is a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and a war crime as per the guidelines of the International Criminal Court.

There existed at least 2,700 unknown, unmarked graves containing more than 2,943 bodies across 55 villages between November 2006 and November 2009, a report by the International People’s Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Kashmir (IPTK) documented, including photographic evidence. In November 2017, the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) reportedly ordered a DNA probe into 2,080 unmarked graves in the districts of Poonch and Rajouri, but no information is available on any follow up. 

(Mehta, a second-year undergraduate at the University of Chicago, is an intern at IndiaSpend.)

Courtesy: India Spend

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A recent RTI reply from the office of the State Police Headquarters in Cuttack, Odisha, since 2016-2017, showed that a total of 868 complaints had been received against erring police officials from the rank of constables to Inspectors of Police who are mostly confined to their particular police stations and deal with the public directly. However, the same RTI reply indicates that when it came to disciplinary actions, the total number of police officials in the state against whom disciplinary actions were taken for misbehaviour with public in 2016 and 2017 stood at “zero”. The report noted, “In a clear hint of ‘all is not well’ with the department, the self-admission of the police department now hints that many errant police officials ranging from the ranks of constables to Indian Police Service (IPS) cadres had been booked on the counts of bad behaviour and other charges.”

In 2016, a total of 439 such cases were registered, while in 2017, a total of 429 such cases were registered, which included 21 complaints against “top honchos”.

In this overall scenario, the recent conviction of ex-IPS Officer Sanjiv Bhatt on June 20, with life imprisonment in a 30 year old alleged custodial death case has once again brought the question of accountability in the police machinery to the forefront. This area has remained a black hole, where not only is it nearly impossible to bring any of the police officials responsible for a crime to justice, but also it’s equally difficult to access data or information on the subject. Bhatt’s case is also mired in allegations of political vendetta as the same state government that rigorously prosecuted him over the past seven years, had protected him against prosecution till 2011.

The Times of India today reported how, in India saw 1,557 custodial deaths between 2001 and 2016, the last year for which data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) is available. Over these 16 years, the number of policemen convicted for custodial deaths is a mere 26, the vast majority of them in Uttar Pradesh. Data compiled from editions of NCRB’s annual publication ‘Crime in India’ shows that over this 16-year period, the largest number of custodial deaths, 362, happened in Maharashtra followed by Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. Gujarat stands at number 3 with 180 custodial deaths in this period, with no officer being convicted for these crimes. These were the only states with over 100 custodial deaths each. Of these, only in the case of UP were there any convictions. UP witnessed 17 policemen being convicted for custodial deaths. None of the other four, including Gujarat, seen even one policemen being convicted for people dying in custody during this period. The government of India has simply stopped uploading data on this and other issues since 2016.

Custodial crimes and complaints against police personnel
Custodial death is the event of demise of an individual, who has been detained by the police on being convicted or being under trial.  According to the latest available National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB, 2016) data available, in a total number of 92 cases of custodial deaths (which included both persons on remand and not on remand), zero number of policemen were convicted. Of the 60 custodial deaths that took place when the person was in custody but not on remand (before being produced in court), less than a third saw cases registered against police personnel in connection with deaths and a sixth saw a charge sheet being filed against the accused policemen/officers.

Further, per NCRB, of the 32 total deaths while the person was in custody (judicial or police), a judicial enquiry was ordered in 28 cases. Only in six incidents, cases were registered against police personnel in connection with deaths. In 14 of these cases, policemen were charge sheeted and but all were acquitted.

In all, there were 209 cases of “Human Rights Violation by Police” (page number 536), only in one fourth of these cases “police personnel were charge sheeted” but there were zero convictions.

A report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) noted, “While Indian police typically blame deaths in custody on suicide, illness, or natural causes, family members of victims frequently allege that the deaths were the result of torture or other ill-treatment.” In 2015, police registered cases against fellow police officers in only 33 of the 97 deaths in police custody. Satyabrata Pal, until 2014 a member of the National Human Rights Commission, told Human Rights Watch, “The entire intention in a police internal investigation is to whitewash.”

The 114 page report, “Bound by Brotherhood: India’s failure to End Killings in Police Custody” noted that between 2010 and 2015, there were at least 591 custodial deaths.

While the NCRB report for the year 2016 placed total number of custodial deaths at 98, another report titled “Torture Update: India” published by Asian Centre of Human Rights (ACHR) in June 2018 said that while replying to a question in Rajya Sabha, the Minister of State for Home Affairs, Hansraj Gangaram Ahir stated that the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) registered a total of 1674 cases of custodial deaths including 1530 deaths in judicial custody and 144 deaths in police custody between April 1, 2017 and February 28, 2018. This placed the numbers at a worrying five deaths per day in custody!

The Supreme Court, in March 2018, while hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) had said “Prisoners can’t be kept at in jails like animals” after it was informed that many of the over 1300 prisons across the country were overcrowded, to as much as 600 percent in some cases.

The ACHR report noted, “During this period (1 April 2017- 28 February 2018), the highest number of custodial deaths took place in Uttar Pradesh (374) followed by Maharashtra (137), West Bengal (132), Punjab (128), Madhya Pradesh (113), Bihar (109), Rajasthan (89), Tamil Nadu (76), Gujarat (61), Odisha (56), Jharkhand (55), Chhattisgarh (54), Haryana (48), Delhi (47), Assam (37), Andhra Pradesh (35), Uttarakhand and Telangana (17 each), Karnataka (15), Himachal Pradesh (8), Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura (6 each), Jammu & Kashmir and Meghalaya (4 each), Mizoram (3), Manipur, Chandigarh, Sikkim and Nagaland (2 each). The States and Union Territories where no custodial death took place are Goa, Dadra & Nagar Haveli, Andaman & Nicobar, Daman & Diu, Lakshadweep, and Puducherry.”

Even other countries have feared extraditing prisoners back to the country for the fear of torture. India refuses to ratify the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (UNCAT). A Bill to statutorily prevent torture following international recommendations and the recommendations of the Indian Law Commission has been pending in Parliament since 2010.

While successive governments have remained callous about the status of torture, Indian prisons and custodial death, the sudden extraordinary punishment awarded to Bhatt, a visible critique of the current regime and a whistle-blower does ring an alarm bell. Not only could this conviction be rooted in political vendetta, but also it does grave injustice to the situation of hundreds and thousands under-trials, mostly Dalits, Muslims, Adivasis, Kashmiris lodged in Indian jails without seeing so much as a ray of light in their cramped cells.

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A couple of years ago, India’s Attorney General had said at the UN that “Ours (India) is a land of Gandhi and Buddha. We believe in peace, non-violence and upholding human dignity. As such, the concept of torture is completely alien to our culture and it has no place in the governance of the nation.” (Baljeet Kaur in EPW Vol. 53, Issue No. 36, 08 Sep, 2018)
 
Fine words indeed. However the 2015-2016 NHRC Annual Report states:Custodial violence and torture continue to be rampant in the country. It represents the worst form of excesses by public servants entrusted with the duty of law enforcement. 

Between September 2017 and June 2018  news reports noted 122 incidents of custodial torture resulting in 30 deaths. There has been no consistent documentation of torture-related complaints. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) does not document cases of custodial torture.(Baljeet…)
 
Let us enumerate some of the tortures taking place in the context of Indian government’s efforts to do away with so-called ‘extremism’ in the country:
 

• Several intellectuals, artists, writers, journalists, legal professionals, poets, Dalit  &Adivasi rights activists, human rights activists have now become suspects in the eyes of the ruling class. They are now invariably  called ‘maoists’, ‘naxals’, ‘urban naxals’ etc. Cases, including serious cases such as Unlawful Activities Prevention Act [UAPA], Sedition etc. have been foisted on them. Several of them have already been jailed, others are being harassed with raids on their work places and residences.

Now let us ask ‘who’ and ‘what’ are theseindividuals. They are perhaps the most precious human beings who have given the most and best of themselves for the cause of truth and justiceand have clearly taken the side of the deprived, marginalized sections of society. They have expended their individual charisma, professional expertise, unconditional solidarity with the deprived masses and many of them have achieved phenomenal success in bringing relief to the abandoned lot of human beings about whom the rest of society does not bother. They have deprived themselves of social & economic security which they otherwise would have enjoyed.

When the ruling class instead of commending their commitment is bent upon punishing them in meanest ways, it is deplorable.
Is this not torture ?

• The condition of the economically and socially deprived sections is even more a cause of concern. The fact is two-thirds [67%] of prisoners in India are under trials. Besides, one in every three under-trial prisoners in India is either SC or ST. Although they constitute only 24% of the population, 34% of them are under-trials. A random sampling study of under trial prisoners in Jharkhand reveals that the family-income of  59% of under trials is below Rs.3000 p/m and 38% of them earn between Rs.3000 and 5000 p/m. That means a total of 97% of under trial prisoners in Jharkhand earn less than Rs.5000 p/m. The inevitable conclusion is that practically all under trial prisoners are very poor people.(finding taken from ‘A Study of Undertrials in Jharkhand’ by Bagaicha Research Team, 2016, p.54)

A vexing question is how did they come to be arrested as ‘naxals’ / ‘sympathisers of naxals’?  The above-mentioned study found out that about 57% were arrested while they were at their homes.30% were arrested while travelling, at railway station or at a town while shopping. Eight percent said they surrendered themselves on being informed that there was a case registered against them, and five percent said that they were summoned by the police to the station ostensibly for some other purpose but on arrival they were arrested. However, most of the charge sheets filed by the police state that these arrests were made from forests. This mismatch is a clear indication that the police habitually fabricate cases against Adivasi villagers. (from above-mentioned study, p.56)
 
It is important to remember that greater part of them are young people. 22% are in the age-group of 18-28 which is the most creative part of one’s life and 46% are aged 29-40 which is the most productive part of one’s life. (facts from above study, p.50)But the repercussions of their imprisonment on themselves and their families are tragic. Many families have mortgaged or sold off the little assets such as their land, cattle. The sole breadwinner of the family is either in jail or implicated in cases. It is heart-rending to see many families have been reduced to destitution and their small children are growing up without paternal love and care. And knowing full well that if and when they are tried most of them will be acquitted.Hence their trial is deliberately prolonged no end.Is this not torture ?
 
It is common knowledge that prisoners are systematically tortured in our country. The poorer you are, the more liable you become a victim of physical torture in prison. Even very educated, knowledgeable, professionals are not exempt from physical as well as mental torture. It became evident when one of the accused in Bhima-Koregaoncase who is himself a lawyer was repeatedly slapped during police custody in Pune jail to the extent he had to be taken to the hospital. If this can happen to an eminent legal professional,the fate of poor helpless under-trial prisoners is best left to one’s imagination.
                                                                                                                                  
Is this not torture ?
 
And yet we are told ‘India is the land of Buddha and Gandhi and torture is just not part of our culture’ ! 
 
We can only take solace from the endearing song of our revered patriot, philosopher, poet Rabindranath Tagore. . .                                                                                                  
 
Where The Mind Is Without Fear
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Related Articles:
4,000 Adivasis, Charged as ‘Naxals in Jails of Jharkand

Fence Eating the Crop ! NHRC Finds Fake ‘Naxalite-Surrenders’ in Jharkhand

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Last week, Melzer issued a scathing denunciation of Assange’s persecution, calling it “psychological torture.”

Reporter Philip Williams asked Melzer, “If your calls are ignored, do you fear that he could actually die in prison?” Melzer replied, “Absolutely, yes. That’s a fear that I think is very real … the cumulative effects of that constant pressure, it will become unpredictable how this will end. What we see is that his health condition is currently deteriorating to the point that he cannot even appear at a court hearing. This is not prosecution; this is persecution and it has to stop here and it has to stop now.”

The full radio interview with Melzer can heard here. WikiLeaks publisher and journalist Julian Assange was sentenced to 50 weeks in jail on May 1 by a British court in a vindictive show trial on fabricated charges of “skipping bail.” Following his eviction from the Ecuadorian embassy on April 11, where Assange had sought asylum and was effectively detained for seven years, he was arrested by British authorities and is now held in Her Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh in southeast London.

Melzer’s comment about Assange’s dire condition follows a statement he issued on May 31 demanding an immediate end to the “collective persecution” by the United States and its allies.

The UN torture expert visited Assange in Belmarsh on May 9 along with a medical doctor and psychologist in order to evaluate the condition of the heroic journalist. Melzer issued his statement just one week after the US Justice Department announced 17 counts on charges of violating the Espionage Act—which carry up to 170 years in prison if convicted—and renewed the demand that the WikiLeaks publisher be extradited to the US for prosecution.

Melzer warned that the nine-year “persistent and progressively severe abuse” of Assange by US, British and Ecuadorian authorities and the threat of his being extradited to the US would pose “a real risk of serious violations of his human rights, including his freedom of expression, his right to a fair trial and the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

Speaking from Geneva during his interview with ABC Radio Adelaide, Melzer reiterated his warning that Assange cannot get a fair trial in the US “in light of the prevalent prejudice against him and the image of the public enemy that has been portrayed over there.”

In answering a question from Williams about the role of the Australian government in the unfolding attacks on Assange, Melzer said, “The Australian government has been the glaring absentee in this case from my perspective. I would have expected Australia to take steps to protect their national … to protect him from this excessive persecution that he is experiencing currently.”

Assange is the target of an international campaign of vilification, persecution and silencing due to WikiLeaks’ exposure to the people of the world both the war crimes American imperialism and its allies.

Melzer’s warning points to the urgent need to organize a struggle to defend Assange. We urge all of our readers to take up this fight .
Originally published by WSWS.org

Courtesy: Counter Current

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The brazen responses demonstrate the criminality of the US-led vendetta against Assange, which is proceeding in violation of due process and the fundamental tenets of international law.

Melzer wrote: “In 20 years of work with victims of war, violence and political persecution, I have never seen a group of democratic states ganging up to deliberately isolate, demonise and abuse a single individual for such a long time and with so little regard for human dignity and the rule of law.”

The UN official condemned as responsible the governments of the US, Britain, Sweden and Ecuador, which have persecuted Assange for his role in the exposure of war crimes and global diplomatic conspiracies. Melzer told the media that the Australian government was complicit, for abandoning the Australian citizen and journalist.

Within hours of the report’s release, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt took to Twitter to denounce it as “wrong.” He declared that “Assange chose to hide in the embassy and was always free to leave and face justice.” Hunt demanded that the UN Special Rapporteur “allow British courts to make their judgements without his interference or inflammatory accusations.”

Melzer directly replied to Hunt, correctly noting that “Mr Assange was about as ‘free to leave’” Ecuador’s London embassy, “as someone sitting on a rubberboat in a sharkpool.”

Assange’s decision to seek political asylum in the embassy in 2012, in order to escape US persecution for WikiLeaks’ lawful publishing activities, was completely vindicated by the Trump administration’s unveiling last month of 17 Espionage Act charges against him, carrying a maximum sentence of 170 years imprisonment.

The UN official continued: “As detailed in my formal letter to you, so far, UK courts have not shown the impartiality and objectivity required by the rule of law.”

Melzer told the Guardian that Assange was convicted of British bail charges just hours after he was expelled from Ecuador’s London embassy and arrested by British Police on April 11. “Under the normal rule of law you would expect someone to be arrested and then given a couple of weeks to prepare his defence at least,” he said.

Despite the minor character of the bail charges, Assange was sent to Belmarsh Prison, a maximum-security facility where individuals convicted of murder and terror offenses are often sent. WikiLeaks issued a statement last Thursday confirming that Assange had been moved to the medical ward of the prison and that his health had gravely deteriorated over the seven weeks of his incarceration, including as a result of rapid weight loss.

Melzer, who visited Assange last month, said Assange exhibited “all symptoms typical for prolonged exposure to psychological torture, including extreme stress, chronic anxiety and intense psychological trauma.” It “was perceptible that he had a sense of being under threat from everyone.”

The political purpose of Hunt’s rejection of the UN findings—to facilitate Assange’s dispatch to a US prison—was made clear in comments he made to CBS’s “Face the Nation” program on Sunday. Hunt stated that if he were chosen to replace outgoing Tory Prime Minister Theresa May, he would not block Julian Assange’s extradition to the US.

Voicing the intense hostility of the British ruling elite towards Assange, Hunt said: “But would I want to stand in the way of Julian Assange facing justice? No, I would not.” What the foreign secretary describes as “justice,” is locking a journalist away for life, and, as Melzer has warned, subjecting him to the prospect of further US torture, for publishing the truth.

The UN statement also implicated the establishment press in the campaign of torture against Assange, commenting that he had been subjected to an unprecedented campaign of “mobbing.”

The media outlets which have played the central role in this vilification campaign, such as the British Guardian and the US New York Times, have not responded by withdrawing their obscene personal attacks on Assange. Neither have they condemned Hunt’s dismissal of Melzer’s report.
Instead, the executives of the main British corporate media outlets gathered in Glasgow on Saturday to hear Hunt pontificate on the importance of press freedom at the World News Media Congress.

In a display of staggering hypocrisy, the foreign secretary, whose government had been condemned the previous day for its role in torturing a journalist, declared: “Democracy and freedom of expression mean nothing unless independent journalists are able to scrutinise the powerful—and discover the stubborn facts—however inconvenient this might sometimes be for the politicians on the receiving end.”

Hunt did not add that such “scrutiny” and uncovering of “stubborn facts” were impermissible if they impacted upon the imperialist operations of the US, Britain and its allies. Nor is there any record of the media representatives in attendance speaking out in defence of Assange, or even mentioning his name.

Their cowardly performance demonstrates that they are representatives of what Australian investigative journalist and filmmaker John Pilger described as “Vichy journalism,” in reference to the fascist regime that collaborated with the Nazi occupation of France during World War Two. If the abuses against Assange had been carried out by Russia, China or another country in the cross-hairs of US and British imperialism, there is no doubt that such journalists would be up in arms.

Melzer’s statement was also a damning indictment of the Australian government. He told the media that Australia had been a “glaring absence” in the defence of Assange’s fundamental legal and human rights.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, which has maintained a lengthy silence on the WikiLeaks founder’s plight, immediately shot back with a statement denying that Australia was complicit in torture, and claiming that it was providing Assange with “active and high level consular assistance.”

This unspecified assistance, however, has done nothing to prevent the deterioration of Assange’s health, or halt the US-led attacks against him. In reality, the Liberal-National government, the Labor opposition and the entire Australian political establishment have collaborated in the US-led vendetta against Assange by refusing to defend him.

Not a single representative of the government, Labor, the Greens or the official Australian media has condemned the US Espionage Act charges against Assange.

The rejection of the UN report by the governments that are persecuting Assange demonstrates that his freedom will not be secured by plaintive appeals to the powers-that-be. His deepening medical crisis, moreover, makes clear that not only is his liberty at stake, but his very life.

Mass support is growing for the WikiLeaks founder among workers, students and young people, who correctly view him as a hero, under attack for exposing criminal wars and oppression. These people must be mobilised.

The WSWS and the Socialist Equality Parties around the world are fighting to build a political movement of the working class to defend Assange, and all democratic rights, as part of the struggle against militarism, war and authoritarianism, and their source, the capitalist profit system. Contact us to become involved.

Courtesy: Counter Current

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Image Courtesy: AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan

Srinagar: The Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) and the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) released the first comprehensive report on torture in Jammu and Kashmir titled Torture: Indian State’s Instrument of Control in Indian Administered Jammu and Kashmir on Monday. The report focuses on the torture perpetrated in Jammu and Kashmir by the Indian State since 1990 and provides a contextual understanding of various phases of torture being perpetrated in Jammu and Kashmir since 1947. Using 432 case studies, the report charts out trends and patterns, targets, perpetrators, sites, contexts and impacts of torture in Jammu and Kashmir.
 
Due to legal, political and moral impunity extended to the armed forces, not a single prosecution has taken place in any case of human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir.
 
Despite global attention and condemnation of torture following exposés of indiscriminate torture practised in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prisons, torture remains hidden in Jammu and Kashmir, where tens of thousands of civilians have been subjected to it. 
 
Torture is used as a matter of policy by the Indian State in Jammu and Kashmir in a systematic and institutional manner, like all the institutions of the State be it legislature, executive, judiciary and armed forces form a part.
 
The widespread use of torture continues unabatedly in Jammu and Kashmir. As recently as 19 March 2019, a 29-year-old school principal, Rizwan Pandith was killed due to torture after being illegally detained in the Cargo camp of the Special Operations Group of Jammu and Kashmir Police. Three days later, the Police filed a case against deceased Rizwan, alleging that he was trying to escape from the Police custody while no case was filed against Police officials under whose custody he was killed.
 
This report gives a brief understanding of the historical background in the use of torture in Jammu and Kashmir since 1947 to curb any dissenting voices, a practice which attained an unprecedented magnitude post-1990. The report categorizes the eras after 1990 during which torture and other human rights violations, while still being carried out by the Indian armed forces and Jammu & Kashmir Police, were also outsourced to different formations like Ikhwan and Village Defence Committees (VDCs).
 
This report establishes that the vast number of methods of torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, as set out in the UN OHCHR Istanbul Protocol, have been and continue to be perpetrated in Jammu and Kashmir. The forms of torture that have been documented in this report include stripping the detainees naked (190 out of 432 cases studied for this report), beating with sticks, iron rods or leather belts (326 cases), roller treatment (169 cases), water-boarding (24 cases), dunking detainees’ head in water (101 cases), electrocution including in genitals (231 cases), hanging from the ceiling, mostly upside down (121 cases), burning of the body with hot objects (35 cases), solitary confinement (11 cases), sleep deprivation (21 cases), sexual torture (238 cases) including rape and sodomy, among others.
 
The report points out that a predominant majority of the torture victims are civilians: 301 out of 432, which include women, students and juveniles, political activists, human rights activists and journalists. Entire populations have also been subjected to collective punishments like cordon and search operations (CASOs) during which torture and sexual violence have been common.
 
This report provides an insight into how torture has ruined the lives of survivors with a multitude of them suffering from chronic ailments resulting from torture. Apart from the physical ailments, people who have been tortured or even witnessed it, have suffered from psychological issues like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). 49 of the 432 victims of torture died post-torture, 40 of them as a result of injuries received during torture. Since many deaths due to torture-related injuries are not immediate but may occur after years or even decades, accurate figures of such fatalities and morbidity are extremely hard to estimate.
 
Torture has been associated with other human rights violations like custodial deaths and enforced disappearances. And it is only when a case of torture is accompanied by such human rights violations that it gets reported in the media. As a result, torture has remained unnoticed and survivors continue to suffer in silence. Since policies like ‘Operation All Out’ continue in Kashmir and the army is given a “free hand” as declared by the Prime Minister of India as recently as 15 February 2019, the armed forces are only emboldened to continue perpetrating torture. This report is an attempt by APDP and JKCCS to break the silence around such a penetrating violation.
 
The report recommends for an international investigation on torture in Kashmir, led by UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, besides urging India to ratify the UN Convention Against Torture and end the phenomenon of torture.
 
The Indian State’s response to the armed conflict in Kashmir shows the characteristics of classic counter-insurgency warfare, where military strategies are both ‘population-centric’ and ‘enemy-centric,’ the report stated in its executive summary. The disproportionate presence of Indian armed forces and Police in Jammu and Kashmir (between 650,000 – 750,000)4 is mainly to exercise control over the population. The widespread human rights violations, including the use of indiscriminate torture, is a tactic employed to break people’s will. This is reflected in the Indian Army’s Doctrine on Sub-Conventional Operations, which says, “The endeavour should be to bring about a realization that fighting a government is a ‘no win’ situation and that their anti-government stance will only delay the process of restoration of peace and normalcy.”
 
After the killing of militant commander Burhan Wani in July 2016, the present period has witnessed unprecedented cycles of State violence. In the last two years, Kashmiris have witnessed gross violations of human rights in the form of extra-judicial executions, injuries, illegal detentions, torture, sexual violence, disappearances, arson and vandalism of civilian properties, restriction on congregational and religious activities, media gags, and the ban on communication and internet services.
 
Unlike other forms of heinous human rights abuses like extra-judicial killings, enforced disappearances or indiscriminate and excessive force exemplified by the use of pellet shotguns, torture is a state crime that often remains hidden even from the media, unless the victim dies as a result of his/her injuries. As many deaths due to torture-related injuries are not immediate but may occur after years or even decades, accurate figures of such fatalities and morbidity are extremely hard to estimate.
 
“Out of the 432 victims, 222 (51.4%) suffered some form of health complications after being tortured. Out of these 222, 209 (94.1%) people suffered health issues with long- term ramifications, and among them, 49 (23.4%) suffered acute ailments e.g. cardiac problems, nephrological issues, complete or partial loss of eyesight or hearing ability, amputations, sexual impotency, etc. and many of these people have been on regular (or irregular) medication ever since they were tortured. Documented studies of the early 1990s have previously noted that torture has resulted in people developing Rhabdomylosis and consequent acute renal failure,” the report said.
 
Survivors of torture have battled with psychological issues long after their physical wounds were healed. Of the 432 victims, 44 suffered from some form of psychological difficulty after being subjected to torture.
 
A study published in 2015 by Doctors Without Borders (known by its French initials MSF) said that 19 per cent of the population in the region suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
 
Indian forces have faced criticism for excessive use of force, with the UN human rights body last year calling for an international probe into rights violations.
 
The UN Human Rights Chief had also called for establishing a Commission of Inquiry (COI) to conduct a comprehensive independent international investigation into allegations of human rights violations in Kashmir.
 
A COI is one of the UN’s highest-level probes, generally reserved for major crises like the conflict in Syria.
 
Rights bodies have called for the repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), a law that gives forces immunity from prosecution.
 
The report, which documents cases since the start of the armed rebellion in 1990s, reveals many detainees were put under behavioural coercion where they were forced into activities that were against their “religious beliefs” like rubbing piglets on their bodies or forcing them to consume alcohol.
 
In some cases, it said, rats were put inside victims’ trousers after soaking sugar water on their legs.
 
“The prisoners are forced to eat or drink filthy and harmful substances like human excreta, chili powder, dirt, gravel, chili powder mixed water, petrol, urine, and dirty water,” it said.
 
Although India has been a signatory to the United Nations Convention against Torture (UNCAT) since 1997, it has not ratified the treaty to date. In all three UPRs conducted by the UNHRC in 2008, 2012 and 2017, it was recommended that India ratify the convention.
 
In 2010, Prevention of Torture Bill was introduced in the Indian parliament but was not passed and it lapsed in 2014.
 
Three special rapporteurs of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) have written to India asking for details on steps taken to punish or provide justice to victims and their next of kin in 76 cases of torture and arbitrary killing in Jammu and Kashmir since 1990, the Wire reported on Monday.
 
The letter to the Indian government, dated March 18, is written by the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Agnes Callamard, Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, Dainius Puras and the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, Nils Melzer.
 
It was made public on the UNHRC website on May 18 after a scheduled interval of 60 days, along with India’s reply that refused to provide any clarifications.
 
The letter relates to 76 cases of torture and killings of civilians, which include 13 just in 2018. These 2018 cases included eight civilian killings allegedly by security forces and the rest by militants.
 

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That was proved on April 3, 2019 when a brave woman  Nirmalakka travelled from Sukma to Kunta for two hours with around twenty journalists after her release from jail in Chhattisgarh. After 12 years in jail, she was finally acquitted from all cases. (“Framed in 157 cases, woman gets acquitted in all, released after 12 years from Chhattisgarh prison”, by Shams Ur Rehman Alavi, newsbits.in). Her family members reached Jagdalpur central jail along with court orders accompanied by lawyers.

Life of struggle

In 1989, at the age of 22, Venkatalakshmi alias Nirmala  began to work among the people leaving her native place in Andhra Pradesh. In 1994, before moving to forest area of Chhattisgarh, she learned about the lives of tribals besides, she learned languages like Tamil, Hindi, Marathi , Kannada and tribal languages Gondi and Halbi and formed a political base for future movements.

She started to acquaint with socio-economic and cultural situation of the adivasis and how they are being exploited by the corporates who are occupying forests for their wealth and mining purposes. She stood by them and helped them by treating their wounds sustained in gunfire.
Despite the ruthless oppression of state and ‘salwa judum’ atrocities and her failing health, she continued to provide staunch and effective leadership for the poor women with her speaking firepower.

Imprisonment 

On July 5, 2007, she was imprisoned along with her husband and others. She was even subjected to torture in front of the villagers and threatened them with dire consequences if they dare to follow her.

Trial and release 

She was not allowed to appear for trials in the first few years. Even in the court warrant, nothing was mentioned except her name till she protested the procedure. She used to prepare her arguments and had her lawyers argue on the notes prepared by her for ten years. She had to struggle all these years to defend herself.

At last, she was not proved guilty in any one of the cases. There was no evidence to prove her links or involvement in any terrorist or extremist violence. She was incarcerated for her ideological beliefs.

Nirmalakka is free of all charges now.

Truth has won!

Courtesy: Counter View
 

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