Action against Kashmiri tribals following terror attack in Poonch extrajudicial: CASR

Counterview Desk
The civil rights network* Campaign Against State Repression (CASR) has described the recent action following th terrorist attack in Poonch, Kashmir, in which five jawans were killed, as "extrajudicial killing and torture of Kashmiri tribal men". Calling the security forces' move as as part of "Poonch witch hunt" following the terror attack, CASR quoted the Indian Army as stating that “they have been killed due to their ‘mistake’.”
Even as risking that it could be called anti-national, questioning the alleged action of the Indian Army, whose actions few dare to object, CASR said, "The Indian Army... deems itself to be the judge, jury and executioner in Kashmir while Narendra Modi’s ‘New India’ thumps the claim of being the ‘world’s largest democracy'."

Text:

In the aftermath of the deaths of 5 Indian Army personnel in Poonch, Kashmir at the hands of the People’s Anti-Fascist Front, the Indian army has resorted to torture, extra-judicial killings of civilians and suppression of democratic rights of the people of Poonch village along with the CRPF laying a siege to the village.
The bodies of Safeer Hussain, Mohammed Showkat and Shabir Ahmed were found near the attack site, with the three Kashmiri tribal persons being part of eight persons detained as part of the so-called investigation in the deaths of the Indian Army personnel. Mobile internet services in Poonch have also been stopped.
The families of the three murdered in extra-judicial killings by the Indian Army also argue that the three persons were tortured before their deaths. All three men were labourers with no criminal track record, with even the sarpanch of the village vouching for their credibility.
Several videos have already surfaced from Poonch where the Indian Army is meting out heinous brutalities against Kashmiris of all ages and genders as part of their reactionary vengeance. Not only was no legal procedure for detention followed, since not even an application against these individuals or an FIR was filed against them with the police.
Instead, the Indian Army called several individuals to their camp, picked some of them directly from their residences and tortured them, killing the three aforementioned persons with no semblance of the “law and order” the Indian state claims to be trying to uphold through the continued occupation of Kashmir by its military.
Videos have surfaced of the Indian Army personnel shoving chili powder inside the anus of the detained persons. In another video, a young boy’s motionless body was being protected by an older detained person who was stripped and sprayed with chili powder by the Indian Army. Others were beaten lifeless by the jackboots and plastic canes of the Indian Army personnel.
Media personnel were stopped from entering Poonch, with the CRPF seizing control of the area ensuring no information about the brutalities of the Indian Army leaves the village. While the ruling brahmanical Hindutva fascist BJP had claimed that the abrogation of Article 370 would somehow ‘integrate’ Kashmir with the Indian state, it has only intensified the impunity with which the Indian Army functions and occupies Kashmir for the interests of the Indian state and its ruling classes.
It should then come as no surprise that the People’s Anti-Fascist Front itself emerged after the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019 when the Indian state threw away all pretenses of democracy in Kashmir to establish its direct formal control.

Whether it be in Kashmir, Manipur or Nagaland, the Indian state gladly takes away internet, cellular services and unleashes the most reactionary and most chauvinistic forms of violence upon peoples of oppressed nationalities whose right to self-determination and national liberation the Indian state curtails.

Media personnel were stopped from entering Poonch, with CRPF seizing control of area, ensuring no information is made public

Fake encounters and extra-judicial killings are common practices that the Indian state employs too, whether it be against tribals in Kashmir or Adivasis in Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh or Telangana. While the Brahmanical Hindtuva fascist state regularly makes a mockery of democratic and human rights, it is ready to employ the most brutal forms of violence to even terrorize and murder unsuspecting civilians, whether they be in Poonch or Bastar.

In the same time period when the entire world is witnessing the just resistance of the Palestinian people against the occupying Zionist fascist state of Israel, the Indian state is getting further emboldened in its fascist repression of peoples of oppressed nationalities.
When asked by the people of Poonch for the reasons for the murders of Safeer Hussain, Mohammed Showkat and Shabir Ahmed, the Indian Army stated, “they have been killed due to their ‘mistake’.”
The Indian Army therefore deems itself to be the judge, jury and executioner in Kashmir while Narendra Modi’s ‘New India’ thumps the claim of being the ‘world’s largest democracy.’ The killings of Kashmiri labourers like this is not new, with 3 persons in 2020 being killed in Amshipora in a staged gunfight and being passed off as ‘terrorists’ by the Indian Army also being exposed.
The Indian state employs the same policy in Bastar, where various judicial enquiries have found similar incidences where the Indian army killed civilians and dressed them in the fatigues of Maoists and later claimed the dead were Naxalites.
The extra judicial killings and torture are blatant violations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment as well as a sheer violation of the democratic rights enshrined in the Indian Constitution.

Campaign Against State Repression (CASR) vehemently condemns the extra judicial killings and torture of civilians in Poonch, Kashmir by the hands of the Indian Army.
CASR demands an immediate judicial enquiry into the matter and the end of the occupation of Kashmir by the Indian Army.
---
*AIRSO, AISA, AISF, APCR, BASF, BSM, Bhim Army, bsCEM, CEM, CRPP, CTF, DISSC, DSU, DTF, Forum Against Repression Telengana, Fraternity, IAPL, Innocence Network, Karnataka Jan Shakti, Progressive Lawyers Association, Mazdoor Adhikar Sanghthan, Mazdoor Patrika, Morcha Patrika, NAPM, Nishant Natya Manch, Nowruz, NTUI, People’s Watch, Rihai Manch, Samajvadi Jan Parishad, Samajvadi Lok Manch, Bahujan Samajvadi Manch, SFI, United Agianst Hate, United Peace Alliance, WSS, Y4S

Comments

A comrade in culture and controversy: Yao Wenyuan’s revolutionary legacy

By Harsh Thakor* This year marks two important anniversaries in Chinese revolutionary history—the 20th death anniversary of Yao Wenyuan, and the 50th anniversary of his seminal essay "On the Social Basis of the Lin Biao Anti-Party Clique". These milestones invite reflection on the man whose pen ignited the first sparks of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and whose sharp ideological interventions left an indelible imprint on the political and cultural landscape of socialist China.

1857 War of Independence... when Hindu-Muslim separatism, hatred wasn't an issue

"The Sepoy Revolt at Meerut", Illustrated London News, 1857 By Shamsul Islam* Large sections of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs unitedly challenged the greatest imperialist power, Britain, during India’s First War of Independence which began on May 10, 1857; the day being Sunday. This extraordinary unity, naturally, unnerved the firangees and made them realize that if their rule was to continue in India, it could happen only when Hindus and Muslims, the largest two religious communities were divided on communal lines.

N-power plant at Mithi Virdi: CRZ nod is arbitrary, without jurisdiction

By Krishnakant* A case-appeal has been filed against the order of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) and others granting CRZ clearance for establishment of intake and outfall facility for proposed 6000 MWe Nuclear Power Plant at Mithi Virdi, District Bhavnagar, Gujarat by Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) vide order in F 11-23 /2014-IA- III dated March 3, 2015. The case-appeal in the National Green Tribunal at Western Bench at Pune is filed by Shaktisinh Gohil, Sarpanch of Jasapara; Hajabhai Dihora of Mithi Virdi; Jagrutiben Gohil of Jasapara; Krishnakant and Rohit Prajapati activist of the Paryavaran Suraksha Samiti. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has issued a notice to the MoEF&CC, Gujarat Pollution Control Board, Gujarat Coastal Zone Management Authority, Atomic Energy Regulatory Board and Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) and case is kept for hearing on August 20, 2015. Appeal No. 23 of 2015 (WZ) is filed, a...

Spirit of leadership vs bondage: Of empowered chairman of 100-acre social forestry coop

By Gagan Sethi* This is about Khoda Sava, a young Dalit belonging to the Vankar sub-caste, who worked as a bonded labourer in a village near Vadgam in Banskantha district of North Gujarat. The year was 1982. Khoda had taken a loan of Rs 7,000 from the village sarpanch, a powerful landlord doing money-lending as his side business. Khoda, who had taken the loan for marriage, was landless. Normally, villagers would mortgage their land if they took loan from the sarpanch. But Khoda had no land. He had no option but to enter into a bondage agreement with the sarpanch in order to repay the loan. Working in bondage on the sarpanch’s field meant that he would be paid Rs 1,200 per annum, from which his loan amount with interest would be deducted. He was also obliged not to leave the sarpanch’s field and work as daily wager somewhere else. At the same time, Khoda was offered meal once a day, and his wife job as agricultural worker on a “priority basis”. That year, I was working as secretary...

Two more "aadhaar-linked" Jharkhand deaths: 17 die of starvation since Sept 2017

Kaleshwar's sons Santosh and Mantosh Counterview Desk A fact-finding team of the Right to Feed Campaign, pointing towards the death of two more persons due to starvation in Jharkhand, has said that this has happened because of the absence of aadhaar, leading to “persistent lack of food at home and unavailability of any means of earning.” It has disputed the state government claims that these deaths are due to reasons other than starvation, adding, the authorities have “done nothing” to reduce the alarming state of food insecurity in the state.

Fate of Yamuna floodplain still hangs in "balance" despite National Green Tribunal rap on Sri Sri event

By Ashok Shrimali* While the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Thursday reportedly pulled up the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) for granting permission to hold spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's World Culture Festival on the banks of Yamuna, the chief petitioners against the high-profile event Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan has declared, the “fate of the floodplain still hangs in balance.”

Proposed Modi yatra from Jharkhand an 'insult' of Adivasi hero Birsa Munda: JMM

Counterview Desk The civil rights network, Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha (JMM), which claims to have 30 grassroots groups under its wings, has decided to launch Save Democracy campaign to oppose Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Vikasit Bharat Sankalp Yatra to be launched on November 15 from the village of legendary 19th century tribal independence leader Birsa Munda from Ulihatu (Khunti district).

Ground reality: Israel would a remain Jewish state, attempt to overthrow it will be futile

By NS Venkataraman* Now that truce has been arrived at between Israel and Hamas for a period of four days and with release of a few hostages from both sides, there is hope that truce would be further extended and the intensity of war would become significantly less. This likely “truce period” gives an opportunity for the sworn supporters and bitter opponents of Hamas as well as Israel and the observers around the world to introspect on the happenings and whether this war could have been avoided. There is prolonged debate for the last several decades as to whom the present region that has been provided to Jews after the World War II belong. View of some people is that Jews have been occupants earlier and therefore, the region should belong to Jews only. However, Christians and those belonging to Islam have also lived in this regions for long period. While Christians make no claim, the dispute is between Jews and those who claim themselves to be Palestinians. In any case...

Epic war against caste system is constitutional responsibility of elected government

Edited by well-known Gujarat Dalit rights leader Martin Macwan, the book, “Bhed-Bharat: An Account of Injustice and Atrocities on Dalits and Adivasis (2014-18)” (available in English and Gujarati*) is a selection of news articles on Dalits and Adivasis (2014-2018) published by Dalit Shakti Prakashan, Ahmedabad. Preface to the book, in which Macwan seeks to answer key questions on why the book is needed today: *** The thought of compiling a book on atrocities on Dalits and thus present an overall Indian picture had occurred to me a long time ago. Absence of such a comprehensive picture is a major reason for a weak social and political consciousness among Dalits as well as non-Dalits. But gradually the idea took a different form. I found that lay readers don’t understand numbers and don’t like to read well-researched articles. The best way to reach out to them was storytelling. As I started writing in Gujarati and sharing the idea of the book with my friends, it occurred to me that while...

Counterview

Search This Blog