Civil rights restrictions should be lifted in J&K

There is a case to lift all civil rights restrictions in J&K and withdraw all extra police force from the state, based on the law and order (L&O) data released by the J&K police. These restrictions and Internet curbs had given India a bad name as a ‘human rights violator’. Also, the District Development Council (DDC) elections were held peacefully between November 28 and December 19, 2020. No doubt, these elections did not result in a public endorsement of the BJP’s raison d’etre for the crackdown in the Valley.

Such a drastic lockdown is no longer necessary. While I do not want to mention foreign governments or foreign NGOs, I will refer to the July 2020 report of the Forum for Human Rights in Jammu and Kashmir, co-chaired by former Supreme Court judge Justice Madan Lokur, who had indicted the J&K administration for detaining 6,605 people, including former ministers and 144 minors.

Even as cross-border terrorism was cited as one of the main reasons for the crackdown “to protect the common people”, J&K Director General of Police Dilbag Singh stated that several militant commanders were killed and the situation was better ‘on all parameters’ in 2020. While there were 584 L&O incidents in 2019, the figure came down to 143 in 2020. Militancy-related incidents also came down to 243 in 2020 from 255 of 2019. While 157 militants were killed in 2019, the figure rose to 222 in 2020. However, militant recruitment went up from 143 in 2019 to 174 during last year.

All these would indicate better CT management. The only worrisome trend, according to the data, was cease-fire violations by Pakistan which went up from 605 in 2019 to 930 in 2020. However, that is the worry of our Army which is quite competent to deal with Pakistan’s transgressions.

A similar claim was made in August 2020 that the stone-throwing incidents which were 532 in 2018 had come down to 389 in 2019 and 102 in 2020 with better police deployment and more arrests under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). As against 583 arrests in 2018, the year 2019 saw 849 arrests which came down to 444 in 2020 when more security forces were deployed. Also, the detention of 444 people under the Kashmir Public Safety Act (PSA) was done in 2020 to deal with the emergency situation after the abrogation of Article 370 on August 5, 2019.

The Kashmir valley experienced terrorism from 1988. To quote the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), our most reliable data collector, a total of 10,310 civilians, 3,520 security personnel and 12,396 terrorists lost their lives between 1988 and 2000 in terrorist violence. However, the worst period in the history of J&K insurgency was during 2000-2005 when a total of 4,843 civilians, 3,841 security personnel and 12,843 terrorists were killed.

Year-wise, the trend was like this: From 1,385 incidents in 2000, it peaked to 2,084 in 2001, then started sliding down to 1,642 in 2002, 1,427 in 2003, 1,061 in 2004 and 1,004 in 2005. From 694 terrorist incidents in 2006, the number fell to 86 in 2015. It again rose to 112 in 2016, 163 in 2017 and 206 in 2018 and stabilised to 135-139 in 2019 and 2020. All these CT operations were then undertaken by the J&K police with normal CRPF and military help.

Despite these killings, no Union government, from 1988 till 2019, considered it necessary either to lock down the entire Valley, arrest mainstream politicians and businessmen or place concertina wires restraining common public ‘for controlling cross-border terrorism’. Nor did they consider it necessary to fly in thousands of outside police forces (30,000, according to the Lokur report) to maintain law and order. This justification was put forward for the first time on August 5, 2019, when Article 370 was abrogated by the NDA government.

The official figures of detentions under the PSA are disputed by local civil society groups who say that 662 persons were detained in 2019. The PSA had an ignominious past. This draconian law was enacted by the Sheikh Abdullah government in 1978 against political opponents. Unlike the preventive detention law in the rest of India, PSA denies legal aid to the detainee. Also, the detaining authority does not have to reveal grounds for detention in ‘public interest’.

The Union government criticises Abdullah’s excesses, but used his PSA for suppressing dissent in the Valley, which unfortunately is viewed by human rights groups as directed against Muslims. Yet, the same draconian PSA could be diluted under foreign pressure. A leading journalist had reported on January 24 this year how Kashmir businessman Mubeen Shah, a cousin of an important appointee under the Obama administration, was detained on August 8, 2019. His family had to go from ‘jail to jail in Srinagar’ searching for him. That he was kept in Agra was known only after the US embassy’s intervention. He was released in December 2019.

The J&K administration has also improvised the coercion method by declaring that a person is released from detention, yet preventing him from leaving his residence through the police. This happened on July 30, 2020, to 83-year-old Congress leader Saifuddin Soz. Soz was caught on camera arguing with a policeman who had grabbed his hand to prevent him from leaving his house. Yet, the J&K administration gave an affidavit to the High Court that he was not under detention. It is the constant complaint of leading Kashmir politicians like former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti that such illegal detentions are practised on them. Such tricks impact the impression of us as a responsible regional power trying to rise to the Security Council high table.