India might be slow in privatizing its economy but in the realm of human rights abuses it is pioneer of privatization. The process started from Bihar where in mid seventies eyes of some undertrials were damaged by spraying acid. The act was most of the time accomplished through hardened criminals who happened to be in jail along with the victims. The practice continued for quite some time. It came to an end only after it got publicized and attracted sharp criticism from the Human Rights Activists across the globe.
A new method had to be devised to impart extra judicial penalties upon the alleged offenders of law. The method described as “encounters” often take place when an undertrial “tries to sneak out of a jail or from a vehicle carrying him for the trial”. Sometimes it occurs when the members of security agencies are subjected to an “attack” by the antisocial elements, militants and insurgents.
The result is always death of an alleged offender whether he is an insurgent, political activist, or an ordinary undertrial. Interestingly the security personnel involved in these encounters seldom suffer losses except that of few rounds of ammunition which is deliberately fired to make official version credible.
In the mainland India, human rights groups have exposed several such fake encounters as a result of which their incidence has decreased. Although in the insurgency-infested areas of Kashmir and North East such incidents are rampant but they often go unreported as the official version is seen as a real probability by the human rights groups because of the continuing militancy over there.
Sometimes the security agencies resort to fake encounters to cover up their own atrocities which they commit while interrogating real or alleged insurgents and political activists. When they feel that a person is likely to die as a result of their torture and will surely invoke allegation of custodial killing they take him to a desolate place. Fire few gun shots and kill the tortured person. His death is attributed to an encounter between militants and the Indian security agencies.
To facilitate secrecy of such incidents, police stations seem to have been verbally directed to evade registration of reports aimed at recording detention of any person by a security agency operating in Kashmir. Since this technique of fake encounters in increasingly attracting international criticism, the state seems to have embarked upon absolute privatization of terror. Under this scheme private mafia has been engaged to kill, loot and harass those segments of the society which sympathise with the ongoing freedom movement. Since Kashmir was comparatively crime-free before the present turmoil, there did not exist any organized criminal gang. Such a mafia had to be shaped to serve the purpose. Services of the so called village defense committees were availed in the Jammu region.
Worst types of human rights abuses are being perpetrated through these state sponsored agencies who have managed to secure the title of Sarkari Militants from an eminent Indian columnist AG Noorani.
Genuine insurgents at times also become tool of this scheme. Once arrested, they are subjected to severe forms of torture. Then assigned a target to evade such a torture in future. The target invariably happens to be a political leader, an activist or an absconding insurgent. They are asked to kill him or facilitate his arrest. They are even threatened to face death in case they fail to achieve the assignment. It is obvious that a person trapped in this situation will secure his own life and achieve the assigned target. It has been observed that the persons involved in committing the crime under duress often suffer from psychological trauma from which they are unable to recover for years. Some of them resort to use of drugs and end up as drug addicts. This is the reason for high incidence of drug addiction among the Kashmiri youth engaged in counter insurgency operations by the Indian security agencies.
The purpose of privatizing human rights abuses is to evade state responsibility. Whole corpus of the present-day human rights instruments is directed against state invasion of these rights. By assigning the job to private agencies, the state is trying to shield itself from any accountability in this regard. Besides evading criticism it has become easy for the state to attribute the abuses to its rival militant groups, defame them and justify its own military actions against their supporters. Killing of Molvi Farooq and Qazi Nissar was often attributed to a particular militant group to prepare ground for annihilation of those who adhered to its ideology although most of them happened to be simple religious preachers or political workers. Because of the frequent use this technique has out-lived its utility. Thus recent killings of Abdul Hamid Wani of Peoples League and Gulam Qadir Wani were attributed to unidentified militants. Besides these advantages, basic reason for privatization of human rights abuses seems to be inability of state to prove the guilt of the alleged offenders in an open courts of law. Extra-judicial punishment is perceived to be better way of annihilation of political rivals as it is not easy to penalize them under due process of law.
A new method had to be devised to impart extra judicial penalties upon the alleged offenders of law. The method described as “encounters” often take place when an undertrial “tries to sneak out of a jail or from a vehicle carrying him for the trial”. Sometimes it occurs when the members of security agencies are subjected to an “attack” by the antisocial elements, militants and insurgents.
The result is always death of an alleged offender whether he is an insurgent, political activist, or an ordinary undertrial. Interestingly the security personnel involved in these encounters seldom suffer losses except that of few rounds of ammunition which is deliberately fired to make official version credible.
In the mainland India, human rights groups have exposed several such fake encounters as a result of which their incidence has decreased. Although in the insurgency-infested areas of Kashmir and North East such incidents are rampant but they often go unreported as the official version is seen as a real probability by the human rights groups because of the continuing militancy over there.
Sometimes the security agencies resort to fake encounters to cover up their own atrocities which they commit while interrogating real or alleged insurgents and political activists. When they feel that a person is likely to die as a result of their torture and will surely invoke allegation of custodial killing they take him to a desolate place. Fire few gun shots and kill the tortured person. His death is attributed to an encounter between militants and the Indian security agencies.
To facilitate secrecy of such incidents, police stations seem to have been verbally directed to evade registration of reports aimed at recording detention of any person by a security agency operating in Kashmir. Since this technique of fake encounters in increasingly attracting international criticism, the state seems to have embarked upon absolute privatization of terror. Under this scheme private mafia has been engaged to kill, loot and harass those segments of the society which sympathise with the ongoing freedom movement. Since Kashmir was comparatively crime-free before the present turmoil, there did not exist any organized criminal gang. Such a mafia had to be shaped to serve the purpose. Services of the so called village defense committees were availed in the Jammu region.
Worst types of human rights abuses are being perpetrated through these state sponsored agencies who have managed to secure the title of Sarkari Militants from an eminent Indian columnist AG Noorani.
Genuine insurgents at times also become tool of this scheme. Once arrested, they are subjected to severe forms of torture. Then assigned a target to evade such a torture in future. The target invariably happens to be a political leader, an activist or an absconding insurgent. They are asked to kill him or facilitate his arrest. They are even threatened to face death in case they fail to achieve the assignment. It is obvious that a person trapped in this situation will secure his own life and achieve the assigned target. It has been observed that the persons involved in committing the crime under duress often suffer from psychological trauma from which they are unable to recover for years. Some of them resort to use of drugs and end up as drug addicts. This is the reason for high incidence of drug addiction among the Kashmiri youth engaged in counter insurgency operations by the Indian security agencies.
The purpose of privatizing human rights abuses is to evade state responsibility. Whole corpus of the present-day human rights instruments is directed against state invasion of these rights. By assigning the job to private agencies, the state is trying to shield itself from any accountability in this regard. Besides evading criticism it has become easy for the state to attribute the abuses to its rival militant groups, defame them and justify its own military actions against their supporters. Killing of Molvi Farooq and Qazi Nissar was often attributed to a particular militant group to prepare ground for annihilation of those who adhered to its ideology although most of them happened to be simple religious preachers or political workers. Because of the frequent use this technique has out-lived its utility. Thus recent killings of Abdul Hamid Wani of Peoples League and Gulam Qadir Wani were attributed to unidentified militants. Besides these advantages, basic reason for privatization of human rights abuses seems to be inability of state to prove the guilt of the alleged offenders in an open courts of law. Extra-judicial punishment is perceived to be better way of annihilation of political rivals as it is not easy to penalize them under due process of law.
No comments:
Post a Comment