‘I thought it was the end of the world’

[Leader]

Children walk to school at Rajouri Kadal in Srinagar, last June. Indian security forces fired upon and killed 123 street protesters in Kashmir in 2010. Kashmir is the highest militarised region in the world. – Photo by Dilnaz Boga

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“I will never be the same,” says Raheel Ali (name changed), a student in his early twenties. In his late teens, Ali was put through physical and psychological torture by the Indian security agencies in the disturbed region of Kashmir.

 

[Leader]

“I was thrown into a dark room and tortured. They used gun to break my back. While I was still in pain, a stream of blood ran through my nose and head… and when it clotted in my left eye, I went blind. An hour later, some policemen came and began to torture my private parts. This was and will be the most shameful experience for me for the rest of my life. When electric shocks were given to my private parts, I felt that was the end of world and it was perhaps,”

 

[Leader]

“I had to tell my brother how they had tortured my private parts with cigarette , electric shocks, copper wire and how much pain I felt while urinating. He took me to a doctor and finally, I was put on medication,” says Ali. “On one hand, I had to take psychiatric drugs and on other hand, I had to take antibiotics, healers, etc. I recovered after almost a year… but still I get nightmares about it almost every week.”

 

[Leader]

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.

 

[Leader]

Dilnaz Boga is an Indian journalist and the recipient of Agence France-Presse Kate Webb Prize for her work in Indian-administered Kashmir.

‘I thought it was the end of the world’ | | DAWN.COM


this is extremely shameful of Bharties if they acknowledge this kind of treatment in any way.