According to NGOs working in the Indian administrated Kashmir, last summer several youth and underage boys were picked up by the authorities for participating in street demonstrations against the Indian occupation. Often, under the ambit of draconian laws, youth and children as young as ten are held, even in isolation, and not produced in court. Human rights lawyers in Kashmir complain that the details of these detention cases are not recorded, giving the forces involved impunity from prosecution. No First Information Report were lodged against the perpetrators and acts like Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) Section 4 permit arrest without a warrant.
The armed forces enjoy impunity under AFSPA, which makes it mandatory to seek prior permission of the Central government to initiate any legal proceeding. Even the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) does not have the power to investigate the armed forces under Section 19 of the Human Rights Protection Act 1993 (as amended in 2006).
To make matters worse, most international human rights groups are barred from monitoring the situation in Kashmir. State-appointed commissions, that have investigated several killings and massacres after public outcries, have proven to be toothless. As a result, people no longer view the State as a justice-delivering entity and they have lost faith in all the democratic processes.