Baba Umar
Srinagar, Feb 18: Troopers deployed in Jammu and Kashmir enjoy more powers than guaranteed by the much hated Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). A top ICRC official told Rising Kashmir on condition of anonymity on Monday that the troopers can even “kill” a non combatant wounded militant “because the government of India is not signatory to the additional protocols of Geneva Conventions 1977”.
The official argued since India had not accepted the “disputed nature of Jammu and Kashmir” such killings won’t amount to the breach of any Geneva Conventions. The Geneva Conventions – and their sub rules that are part of international humanitarian law – prevent the killing of civilians, medics, aid workers and those who can no longer fight. According these rules the wounded, sick and prisoners of war come under specifically protected people.
But the same is not yet applicable to Kashmir because of India’s stated position on the territory. “For the applicability of Geneva Conventions all the parties involved in the conflict need to recognize that area as a conflict zone,” the ICRC official asserted.
Last week an injured militant, according to a lone eyewitness Ghulam Qadir, was shot dead by the personnel of Special Operations Group (SOG) of Police after a gunfight at Aglar in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district. “It was in the wee hours of Friday when the SOG men forced me to enter the gutted house,” Qadir, the lone eyewitness to the incident had said. “As I entered the house, I saw one militant with long hairs lying in one of the rooms in the rear end of the house. I could not believe that the militant was alive. He was little conscious and critically injured.”
Qadir said when he touched the militant identified by Police as Abdul Rehman, he (the militant) started wriggle in pain. “I lifted him. He asked to untie the ammunition pouch from his chest. I did that to relieve him.” Qadir said, “I held his head gently and somehow managed to bring him out of the completely gutted two storied house.
As we stepped outside I kept his head straight since he asked me to do so. Suddenly the SOG men standing nearby fired a volley of bullets in the militants head as he was in my lap,” Qadir said and broke down, adding, “I shouted and asked him to recite the Kalima (The Arabic declaration, according to Islamic jurisprudence, that there is no God but Allah). Qadir said the SOG men ordered him to frisk the militant after they had pumped bullets into his head.
Asked to comment on the aforementioned incident, the ICRC official said, “I am not in a position to say anything on this. But I can say this much that India has not accepted Kashmir as a disputed territory or a conflict region. By virtue of this stand no such clause of Geneva Convention which upholds the rights of wounded combatants will be relevant in Kashmir.”
The official, however, said if such an incident would have happened somewhere else then the killing of an unarmed and injured combatant would have qualified for the breach of Geneva Conventions.
“If the same had happened elsewhere, like in Sri Lanka, it was a clear case of violation of the Geneva Conventions and would have been considered as a brave breach,” the ICRC official added.
India has not yet signed and has been consistently opposing the protocol-II of the additional Geneva Conventions of 1977 that relate to the protection of victims of non-international armed conflicts.
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