Srinagar, May 18: A two-member team of Amnesty International, a global movement for human rights, landed in Srinagar on Monday to assess the human rights situation in Kashmir. This is the first time in the past 20 years that the Centre has given Amnesty the permission for such an assessment.
The team comprising Bikram Jeet Batra ( who has worked with the Peoples’ Union for Democratic Rights) and Ramesh Gopal Krishan met human rights activists and the separatist leader Shabir Ahmad Shah.
It is expected to concentrate on preventive detention of political prisoners and the laws that allow such detention. The team is also expected to meet leaders of mainstream political parties and government representatives.
Sources said the Amnesty team will meet more separatist leaders on Tuesday.
Jammu and Kashmir law minister Ali Muhammad Sagar said the state government won’t hesitate to meet the team.
Senior state government officials said they were not aware of the team’s visit. “ I have no knowledge of it and no file has been forwarded to me in this regard,” said principal secretary Khurshid Ganai. The chief secretary of the state, S. S. Kapoor, echoed Ganai.
However, sources said it was the Union home ministry that gave Amnesty the permission. Separatists and human rights activists have been seeking the organisation’s intervention in Kashmir for the past two decades.
—Agencies