STRUCTURES OF VIOLENCE

127 | Structures of Violence
forces presence and violence and by ensuring
absolute impunity. A part of this impunity is the actual
system – police, courts – and laws, of which AFSPA
is one example. To the extent that AFSPA is a poor
law that at a later stage [only after police
investigations are completed] prevents trial, it has
been analyzed. RTIs were led to the Ministry of
Defence and Ministry of Home Affairs both
Government of India Ministries that are the
competent authorities to grant/deny sanction for
prosecution under AFSPA. In addition, RTIs were
led to the Home Department, Government of
Jammu and Kashmir – by whom the request for
sanction is made. Annexures 7, 8 and 9 are
responses from Government of Jammu and
Kashmir. Annexure 7 dated 6 September 2011 is a
list of 50 cases where sanction for prosecution was
requested. Annexure 8 is a communication dated 23
February 2012 that sanction for prosecution has
never been granted. Annexure 9 is response from
the Jammu and Kashmir Police dated 26 March
2013 regarding the 10 cases pertaining to the
Central Reserve Police Force [CRPF] where
sanction for prosecution has been sought. Sanction
has been denied in 6 cases and pending in the
others. Annexure 10 and 11 are responses from
the Ministry of Defence. Annexure 10 is an afdavit
before the High Court [this was acquired from the
court itself] on sanction cases. Annexure 11 is dated
10 January 2012 and is on 24 sanction cases only.
This RTI continues to be pursued before the Chief
Information Commission [CIC], New Delhi.
Annexure 12 relates to sanction for prosecution
information from Ministry of Home Affairs and is the 7
January 2014 decision of the CIC on CRPF sanction
for prosecution cases. The CRPF submitted before
the CIC that there were a total of 8 cases that been
sent from Jammu and Kashmir for sanction for
prosecution of CRPF personnel. In 6 cases sanction
had been declined. 1 case was under consideration
and in 1 case, sanction had been granted. The CIC
upheld the right of the CRPF to not provide any
i n f o r m a t i o n o n s a n c t i o n s [ b e y o n d t h e i r
submissions]. Of importance here is the
contradiction between the information provided by
the Jammu and Kashmir Police and the CRPF. The
Jammu and Kashmir Police states that out of 10
cases there has not been a single grant of sanction,
whereas the CRPF states that in one case sanction
was granted. Once again, as full information is not
provided there is no scope for any verication of
either claim. One may also consider in this regard,
Case no.30 in the sub-chapter on extra-judicial
killings where the victim Bagh Singh from Baramulla
was killed by a BSF Deputy Commandant. On le is
a communication wherein the Ministry of Home
Affairs informs the Government of Jammu and
Kashmir that sanction for prosecution has been
granted for the accused who is serving a 15 year
sentence on a drug related conviction. Once again,
Government of Jammu and Kashmir in their
response to RTIs have never mentioned this case.
The BSF has not provided any sanction related
information. While the status of the trial, if any, is not
known, it is possible that sanction was granted in this
case as the accused had already been convicted
elsewhere. The only other response was by
communication dated 21 September 2012 where
the Indo-Tibetan Border Police Force [ITBP] stated
that no case relating to ITBP personnel had been
received from Jammu and Kashmir.
• Court-Martials. The preceding chapter has
dealt with the role of court-martials in Jammu and
Kashmir. As stated already, an aspect of courtmartials
has been zero transparency. The Ministry of
Defence provided limited information with regard to
court-martials of the Rashtriya Ries [RR]
[Annexures 13, 14 and 15]. Further information on
these RR court-martials, and on other army units
was sought before the CIC. By decision dated 18
October 2012, Annexure 16, the CIC dismissed the
appeal led based purely on the submissions of the
army that “the requisite information has already
been supplied to the appellant vide their letter dated
28.3.2012” [a reference to Annexure 13]. Similarly, in
the case of the Ministry of Home Affairs the matter
was before the CIC who granted only part
information to be provided by its decision dated 7
January 2014 [Annexure 17]. The CIC upheld the
right of the paramilitary units to not provide certain
court-martial information including the name of the
accused. As a consequence, limited and relevant
information was provided by CRPF, March 2014
[Annexure 18], Border Security Force [BSF], 3
March 2014 [Annexure 19], and ITBP, 5 March 2014
[Annexure 20]. The Central Industrial Security
Force [CISF] and the Sashastra Seema Bal [SSB]
stated that their units had held no court-martials visà-vis
cases from Jammu and Kashmir.
• Standard Operating Procedures. The
armed forces state they operate within the contours
of the law and have internal mechanisms that ensure
that no “excesses” are committed. As evidenced by
the 333 cases in this chapter, the other cases
referred to in this report, and the living reality of the
people of Jammu and Kashmir, this is not true. To
understand the framework within which the armed
forces claim to operate, RTIs were led to the
Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Home Affairs, and
Jammu and Kashmir Police on their “Standard
Operating Procedures”. While the Ministry of
Defence did not even respond to the RTI, the
Ministry of Home Affairs and the Jammu and
Kashmir Police claimed exemption from providing
this information as disclosure in this case would go
against the “sovereignty”, “integrity” and “security” of
the “nation”. This position has been challenged in
the respective Information Commissions, and in the
case of the police, the Jammu and Kashmir State
Information Commission passed a decision on 5
August 2015 directing that the information be
provided within 15 days. Till the publication of this
report, no information has been received.
• Identication of perpetrators. Identication
of accused persons responsible for crimes is a
challenge. This difculty is compounded by the