New York, February 01,2013 : The New York-based international human rights organization The Human Rights Watch has said that India’s human rights situation took serious turns for the worse with respect to civil society protections with troops responsible for serious rights abuses in Kashmir remain effectively immune from prosecution under the draconian law Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA).
The Human Rights Watch in its World Report 2013 released in New York said that efforts to end serious abuses by the men in uniform would be hampered so long as a culture of impunity continued to persist as India had failed to make legislation to prevent torture in custody and hold torturers accountable.
It maintained that India had failed to make legislation to prevent torture in custody and hold torturers accountable. The report pointed out that Indian defense establishment resisted attempts in 2012 to revoke or revise the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which permits soldiers to commit serious human rights violations with effective immunity.
Members of army and paramilitary forces “implicated in serious rights abuses continued to enjoy impunity, in large measure due to India’s laws and policies. The Indian defense establishment resisted attempts in 2012 to revoke or revise the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), which permits soldiers to commit serious human rights violations with effective immunity,” the report said.
On the contrary, the human rights watchdog observed that India continued to use a colonial-era sedition law and other legislation to silence critics on a range of issues. The report held that longstanding abusive practices, corruption, and lack of accountability for perpetrators had fostered human rights violations.
The Human Rights Watch maintained that in September, the authorities in occupied “rejected calls for DNA testing of 2,730 corpses that a police investigative team found in unmarked graves at 38 sites in north Kashmir in July 2011. Some of the gravesites are believed to hold victims of enforced disappearance and extrajudicial execution” by the Indian troops dating back to the 1990s.
There were new restrictions on Internet freedom arising in part from concerns about the use of social media to organize protests. And the government continued to use the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act to restrict access to foreign funding for domestic organizations, the report said.