Justice is being denied in cases of human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir, Amnesty International India said on Wednesday.
Twenty five years after the introduction of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in Jammu and Kashmir, the state continues to enjoy impunity, said the report “Denied: Failures in accountability for human rights violations by security force personnel in Jammu and Kashmir”.
“Not a single member of the security forces deployed in the state has been tried for human rights violations in a civilian court,” said Minar Pimple, director of global operations at Amnesty International.
However, in November 2014, the Indian Army had revealed that a court martial convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment five soldiers for shooting and killing three men in a “fake encounter” in Machil in Jammu and Kashmir in 2010.
Amnesty International too welcomed the measure and said: “For justice to be consistently delivered, security force personnel accused of human rights violations should be prosecuted in civilian courts.”
The report was based on interviews with more than 50 family members of victims of alleged human rights violations by security forces.
Amnesty International’s research manager Divya Iyer said: “Not a single family interviewed for the report had been informed by the authorities of the status or outcome of a sanction request in relation to their case.”
Iyer said: “By not addressing human rights violations committed by security force personnel in the name of national security, India has failed its own Constitution.”
–IANS