C Kiran
A day after, Amnesty International (IA) called for impartial and independent investigation of the Kulgam massacre in Kashmir, its offices in India were raided by Hindu extremists; a combination of Indian intelligence people and the elements of RSS. The Amnesty International has condemned the Indian Government over this criminal, offensive and immoral act where more than five officials raided its office in India. AI has asked its officials to stay put and searched their desks. It has also asked India for the action against those, raided the offices of AI.
Earlier, on October 24, 2018, the Amnesty had shown its concern over the continued killings of Kashmiris and particularly the Kulgam genocide where Indian forces killed 14 innocent Kashmiri youth. In this military attack, Indian Army blasted a residential house through the use of explosive material (dynamite) and killed everyone inside the house. The local people, who later came to protest against this inhuman act, were fired upon at point-blank, causing deaths of 14 people and injuring dozens. Indian Army and paramilitary forces also used pellet guns and tear gas against the protestors.
Aakar Patel, Executive Director of AI, said that, “What transpired in the aftermath of the Kulgam encounter is unfortunate and could have been avoided had the authorities taken extra caution to ensure that civilians would have access to the area only after proper sanitisation of the encounter site was done. In case of any direct or indirect violence between security forces and armed groups, extra caution should be exercised to ensure that civilians in the area do not become collateral damage. Safety of the civilian population should be of paramount importance.”
Indeed, it was not a collateral damage, since killing was through direct and pointed fire, rather through crossfire. All Kashmiris killed in Kulgam were civilians; none was the soldier from another Army or some militant outfit. Under the cover of Armed Forces Special Power Act and Public Safety Act, Indian Army can declare anyone in IOK as the militant or accomplices of militants. As part of its genocide campaign, Indian Army picks and choose all those youth, who have tangible inclination towards freedom from Indian rule. This is being done in all schools, colleges and universities in Kashmir. In fact, there are no armed groups of Kashmiris in IHK, since the start of their peaceful political struggle in 2003.
It is pertinent to mention that, Indian Army claims that, there are 250 armed militants in entire IHK, against 700,000 Indian Army and paramilitary forces. The question arises, how came 250 armed Kashmiri can operate against Indian Army, having its deployment all over IHK, with a massive presence in all cities, towns and forests. Hardly there is any place or area, outside the direct presence or at least surveillance of Indian security forces. With such a think presence of its forces and strict monitoring, there cannot be a possibility of armed Kashmiris, still operating in any part of Kashmir.
Though AI, sympathised with martyred Kashmiris and their families, but, there is a need of precision in its reports that, all India aims at in Kashmir to declare the pro-independence youth as militant and kill them subsequently. Indian spying network identify and mark the youth, asking for right of self-determination, arrest them and take them to torture centres and thereafter kill them in fake encounters. In most of the cases, Indian Army provides them weapons too, to prove their view point, that they armed militants. It has to be known that, asking for their UN mandated right of self-determination by Kashmiris is not a crime. Rather, it is a violation from Indian side that, Kashmiris are kept deprived of their basic right to live as per their wishes.
Therefore, the militancy is not from Kashmiri side but it is from Indian state and its security forces against Kashmiris. A justified demand from AI, all human rights organizations and UN should be that, India must stop its state sponsored genocide of Kashmiris in IHK as a first step. In the second step, it has to withdraw its forces from entire population centres of the occupied state, thus, restoring the trust of Kashmiris. This would lead towards UN sponsored plebiscite for the right of self-determination of Kashmiri masses. A free, fair and impartial plebiscite in entire Kashmir would determine who popular India is among the Kashmiris.
Condemnation of Kugam like massacres of Kashmiris is not sufficient. Such mass killings need independent investigations and probes by UN or its nominated teams, else the massive human rights violations in IHK have to be referred to International Court of Justice. From 1990, there have been thousands of incidents where there have been mass killings of innocent people in IHK under the garb of Indian discriminatory laws. Since there have been no investigations and subsequent penalties to those, who did it, therefore, it encouraged India to further intensify its brutalities in the occupied state with new strategies for the genocide of Kashmiris in IHK. Enough is enough, the world and UN must think beyond condemnation of Indian brutalities in IHK and take practical steps to stop the Kashmiri genocide.
