People’s Union for Democratic Rights, PUDR, welcomes the Union Government’s decision (March 31, 2022), to significantly reduce the ambit of disturbed areas under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). According to news reports, this decision will be effective in 15 police stations in seven districts of Nagaland; in 15 police stations in six districts of Manipur; and wholly in 23 districts and partially in one district in Assam.

PUDR strongly condemns the abduction and slaying of one constable and two Special Police Officers (SPOs) by unidentified militants in the Shopian district of Kashmir.The deceased identified as Nisar Ahmad Dhobi (aged 38), Firdous Ahmad Kuchey (aged 28) and Kulwant Singh (aged 35), were picked up from their homes in Batgund and Kapren villages on the morning of 21 September, by a group of militants. Half an hour later, their bodies were found in an orchard in the neighbouring village of Lamni Wangam, ridden with bullets.

Between the 5th and 7th of May 2018, a combined fact-finding team of 40 members from the Coordination for Democratic Rights Organisation (CDRO), Indian Association of Peoples’ Lawyers (IAPL) and Women against Sexual Violence and State Repression (WSS) visited the district of Gadchiroli in Maharashtra.

53 राष्ट्रीय राइफल्स के मेजर गोगाई द्वारा 23 मई 2018 को एक कश्मीरी महिला से यौन सम्बंध बनाने के मामले में 30 मई 2018 को कश्मीर पुलिस ने न्यायिक मजिस्ट्रेट के सामने अपनी रिपोर्ट दाखिल की। पुलिस के अनुसार यह मामला वयस्कों में परस्पर मंजूरी से संबंध बनाने का है क्योंकि एक तो महिला की उम्र 19 साल है दूसरा उसने और होटल के कर्मचारियों ने (जिन्होंने उन्हें होटल में नहीं रुकने दिया था) इस मामले में कोई शिकायत दर्ज़ नहीं की है। इस संस्थात्मक निष्क्रियता के संबंध में पी.यू.डी.आर.

22 और 23 अप्रैल को सी.आर.पी.एफ.

The killings of at least 37 Maoists by the combined force of the CRPF and the C-60, the elite unit of the Gadchiroli Police, on 22nd and 23rd April 2018 raises some very disturbing questions about the state’s methods of conducting ‘encounters’. In the morning of 22nd April, 64 police and paramilitary personnel gunned down 16 Maoists in Karnasur jungle in Bhamragod area in eastern Maharashtra. The following evening, 23rd April, the police commandos and security personnel killed another 6 Maoists in the Rajaram Khandla jungle, in the Jimalgatta area of Gadchiroli district.

News reports of 27.07.2017 state that an Armed Forces Tribunal has suspended the life sentences awarded by a General Court Martial in 2014 and which were confirmed in 2015, to five army personnel for the killings of three Kashmiri civilians in April 2010, at Machil. The reason for suspension rests on presentation of ‘facts’ which have allegedly broken the chain of evidence established in the GCM. Bashir Ahmad Lone, the alleged counter-insurgent who had lured the three civilians to Kalaroos army camp, had not been examined in the Court Martial.

On the morning of 31st October eight male Muslim undertrials- Amjad Khan, Mehboob alias Guddu, Zakir Hussain, Mohammad Salik, Akeel Khilji, Mohammad Khalid, Mujeeb Shaikh, Majid- all accused in SIMI related cases, were brutally shot dead by the Madhya Pradesh (MP) Police. As per the police, the eight had allegedly escaped from Bhopal Central Jail, were armed and dangerous, and the police had no option but to take them out. The facts recounted by the police about the jail break have since been disproved or are at the very least highly contested. How could eight inmates scale a 30 feet wall?

On 23rd July 2009, the Manipur police claimed to have had an encounter with a ‘PLA cadre’ Sanjit, as a result of which Sanjit died. While this version was widely contested by the local people who claimed that Sanjit was murdered in a cold-blooded manner, a set of sequential photographs depicting Manipur police commandoes overpowering an unarmed Sanjit, taking him inside a shuttered down chemist shop and then coming out with his bullet ridden dead body, published in the Tehelka magazine, left no doubts about the nature of the killing.