Justification by security forces adds salt to injury Close on the heels of the Bandipora molestation and shocking Kupwara killings, have followed the Kangan outrage and the Nowhatta killing, revealing the spiraling graph of human rights violations perpetrated by the security forces.
Both the Kangan incident and the Nowhatta one have their own respective peculiarities.
In the Kangan case, the army has chosen to justify the act on the ground that the girl in question found with the guilty soldier, who ended his life after killing one civilian and injuring another, had gone out of her own sweet will.
Similarly, in the Nowhatta incident, the police claims that the boy was not injured in firing but because of a tear-gas shell.
Both arguments are unpalatable in the light of the sequence of events.
While the issue of whether the proximity of the security forces in civilian areas is leading to moral degradation of society or not may be debatable, the fact remains that whether the girl in the Kangan incident went with the soldier as per her own choice or not, he had neither any moral authority nor legal sanction to indulge in a bloodbath before ending his own life.
A significant poser for those justifying the act is whether any ordinary civilian caught in a similar situation would have engaged himself with the task of brutally gunning down civilians to evade his arrest? Can an army man be absolved of charge of murder only because the girl he was found with in a compromising position had chosen to be with him? Perhaps, the dignity of the uniform and the responsibility of the man wearing it could have been demonstrated better without the ugly incident that smacks of repression.
Equally perplexing is the official version in the Nowhatta killing story, which also brings out the irony of the fact that any protest against human rights abuse is only responded to by greater abuse.
On Friday, when people gathered in downtown area of the summer capital to protest against growing incidence of human rights violations and turned violent, it may have been fine had the police used minimal force to quell a violent protest.
But does firing on passersby, or even the protestors, qualify for minimal use of force? What happened on Monday is even more distressing.
The brutal force used by the police, beating citizens including lawyers and smashing windowpanes of houses and vehicles was indeed an act of terrorism which cannot be condoned.
The official version of the story and the statement of the eye-witnesses and family members of the boy who was killed during police action do not match.
While the police maintains that a protestor was killed by a tear gas shell, the people have alleged that the boy was just passing by and that he was killed by bullets.
To further corroborate their point, the people have maintained that the boy was hit by bullets both in the stomach and on the leg.
It is highly unlikely that one tear gas shell could have hit him both in the stomach and the leg or that two tear gas shells were aimed at the boy alone.
In support of the official story, the police maintain that they are investigating the case, adding that the body of the slain youth was not sent for post mortem because the people did not allow it.
As per norms, it is the responsibility of the police to ensure that in every medical legal case, where deemed necessary, post mortem should be conducted.
By putting the onus on the family members of the slain youth for not allowing post mortem of the body, the police is only trying to make an admission of its own inefficiency.
That the post mortem was not conducted, there can only be two plausible reasons - that either the cops on duty were ignorant of the procedures and therefore inefficient, or that it was a deliberate move to forbid public to know how the boy was actually killed.
Clearly, both the cases demonstrate that while perpetuation of gross violation of human rights goes on, it is the mindset of officially justifying these acts that adds salt to injury.
