by Umar Hadee (Indian Occupied Kashmir)
It was 9:30 pm on August 24,2012 when policemen barged into the house of Bashir Ahmad Sofi of Ganderpora Eidgah in the Down Town locality of Srinagar. They asked for his 12 year old son, Faizan Bashir Sofi claiming him to be a stone-pelter. His family pleaded for his innocence but they didn’t listen and tried to take him away. But the resentment from family didn’t let police take him. The following day (Aug,25) morning police called the family to bring the child to the nearest police station. The family took Faizan to Safakadal Police Station where he was detained, slapped with FIR no. 96/2012 and booked under harsh section of Ranbir Penal Code and Indian Penal Code section 121 (waging war against the state), 307 (attempt to murder), 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapon), 149 (member of unlawful assembly), 152 (assaulting or obstructing a public servant when suppressing riot), 427 (mischief causing damage) and 435 (mischief by fire or explosive substance with intent to cause damage) Police claimed that Faizan was arrested for being part of a crowd which set ablaze a police vehicle on Eid ul Fitr in Srinagar’s old city, a claim contested by the family.
“Why did they arrest my son only? How could he have set the police vehicle on fire? I still bathe him. Why is police against our poor family? We had to sell our two rooms to fight the legal battle after Faizan’s arrest,” Faizan’s mother Parveena told media persons.
On 26 August 2012 a local court granted police 15 days remand to keep him at the juvenile Home at Harwan Srinagar. Facing severe criticism and pressure from activists, civil society and separatists Faizan was released on bail on 28 August. After his release Faizan told media persons that he was denied food and forced to clean toilets at the juvenile home.
“I was severely beaten to disclose the name of boys involved in stone-pelting”, he said.
Faizan is not the only arrested person on such hazy grounds; during the summer agitations of 2008,2009 and 2010 hundreds of people were arrested and detained on similar charges as a desperate measure to quell the unending civil protests. A large number of them comprised of the youth which police claimed to have involved in stone -pelting on the CRPF and police forces.
On 2nd November 2011, police rushed in 5 handcuffed children inside the premises of Sadder Court Srinagar. They looked pale and had visible torcher marks. People, many of them lawyers, inside the premises just gazed in distress as the children moved. Mohsin Majeed Shah was one among the detained minor boys. He had a torture mark on his forehead, right between the eye brows. His tiny hands were held in handcuffs as the policeman pushed him through the bewildered men who stood gazing at the minors. Mohsin’s mother had waited all day inside the court premises to see her 13-year-old son- a seventh grader at the local school. She said he was arrested on the previous Sunday (25 October 2011). It was an emotional tryst between a mother and her son as they wept. His brother, two years elder to him, also wept.
“Look what they have done to Mohsin”, the media reports quoted him saying . His mother had brought him fruits and snacks. Her dirge was unstoppable when she held him in embrace. She kept kissing his forehead, on the torcher mark. His family says Mohsin was arrested the previous week when he left his home at New Colony, Paplpora Noor Bagh, located on the fringes of Old City, to meet his maternal uncle at Rajouri Kadal. An hour later, his brother called their mother to inform Mohsin was picked up by the local police and detained at the local police station. Another boy was Burhan Nazir of Nallah Bandpora, Nowshera. A 6th grader, he was arrested a week before from the streets of Srinagar’s Old City.
“We were severely beaten up in the police station and all we heard from police men were abuses”, Burhan told the media while police men virtually dragged him back from the quote and bundled him into a waiting armored vehicle.
“They abused my sisters, tore our clothes. I am afraid they will beat us again in the police station”, he cried. “They even abused my mother, who is dead.”
When he shouted everyone around froze for a moment. He was lodged for a week at Maharaja Gung Police Station and later shifted to a juvenile home on directions from the Court. The other boys were minors, too. One wore a torn cloak. He looked frightened, while he was being brought inside and later taken out of the Court. There was little time to know their name as police rushed them out in hurry and dumped them into a waiting police van. The lawyers, who had assembled in the Court premises, expressed shock as the detained children were whisked away.
Most off the persons arrested have been slapped with Public Safety Act (PSA) that enable the state to “hold prisoners without trial”. And, misuse of the notorious PSA is rampant in Kashmir; most of these being cases quashed by the local Courts. Though it is claimed that the victims of misuse of PSA could demand compensation so far, there hasn’t been a single case in which compensation was given. Once a victim’s PSA is quashed, the order often reprimands the detaining authority for non- application of mind while repairing the grounds of detention. PSA has been severely criticized by activists and human rights organisation.
Amnesty International (AI) in its report namely “INDIA: A ‘LAWLESS STATE’ : DETENTIONS UNDER THE JAMMU AND KASHMIR PUBLIC SAFETY ACT ” published on 12th March 2011 claimed that “…instead of using the institutions, procedures and human rights safeguards of ordinary criminal justice, the authorities are using the PSA to secure the long term detention of political activists, suspected members or supporters of armed groups and a range of other individuals against whom there is insufficient evidence for a trial or conviction- to keep them “out of circulation.” The report also demanded that “If India is serious about meeting these obligations, then it must ensure that the Public Safety Act is repealed and that detainees are released immediately or tried in a court of law.” AI claimed that at least 322 people are reported to have been detained without trial under the provisions of the PSA in Jammu and Kashmir from January to September 2010 alone. A number of them, including children, have been detained on similar grounds of stone pelting and rioting during various protests against the Indian government throughout the summer of 2010.
There have been also accusations about the ill treatment of detainees lodged in different jails. A fact finding report about the detainees by Bar Association Kashmir in June 2011 raised concern about the ill treatment of Kashmiri prisoners in jails, and severally criticized Human Rights organizations like ICRC and AI for failing to highlight their sufferings. “Bar Association strongly condemns the ill treatment meted out to the detainees and under trial prisoners in Central Jail Kotbalwal, Jammu and District jail Amphala Jammu”, Bar President Mian Qayoom had said in the report, adding that matter related to ill treatment of inmates had also been brought to the notice of High Court in the past.
“However, court directions have been floated by the jail authorities. The Committees so constituted also floated the HC direction, which has emboldened jail authorities in perpetuating the ill treatment on the detainees and under trial prisoners”
Narrating his own experiences of detention, when he was jailed in 2010, Qayoom said Kashmiri detainees and under trail prisoners lodged in the jails of Jammu Province are not only being beaten, paraded naked inside the jail but they are also deprived of all the facilities.
“The medical treatment to which they are legally entitled is also denied. They are also provided insufficient and inadequate food that too at odd hours. The relatives and friends of these inmates are not also allowed to meet them and they are made to wait for days together”, observed Qayoom who along with Bar General Secretary G N Shaheen, where booked and detained for several months under the PSA during the summer unrest of 2010 at Jammu jails.
The reports of prisoners being subjected to torcher during their detentions, a claim reiterated by the human rights organisation have often fallen on deaf ears. According to a wiki leaks expose in December 2010 the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) had sent evidence to US diplomats about wide spread torcher by Indian security forces in Kashmir since 1990. The report produced scathing evidence of third degree torcher in the form of electric shocks, suspension from ceilings, crushing of leg muscles, legs split 180 degrees, water torture and sexual abuse.
In September 2012, Mushtaq ul Islam, Chairman Muslim League who is lodged in Udhampur jail was assaulted and beaten severally by the jail authorities. A bar association team who enquired about the incident confirmed the assault saying that Mushtaq ul Isam received injuries on his head to which he was given inadequate treatment. He was further put in solitary confinement for 21 days. Four successive PSA’s have been imposed on Mushtaq ul Islam since February 2011. The grounds of all of which are similar i.e. “provocative speech and there was a credible breach of peace on the spot”! Another leader of Muslim League, Masrat Aalam Bhat is facing the sixth consecutive PSA since his latest arrest in October 2010.
The Constitution of India which has copied many draconian laws from its colonial predecessor has little when it comes to the rights of prisoners. And when the decision to arrest someone becomes political the question of rights or even following the jail manual becomes a mirage. India despite being a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights has done little to uphold the same in the sub-continent, especially the region of Jammu and Kashmir. In fact the region of Jammu and Kashmir has become a graveyard of gross human rights violation all in the name of national interest and national security.