Over 60,000 Kashmiris are victims of torture: Navlakha

Track News Service: In administered Kashmir , a noted Indian human rights activist, Gautam Navlakha has said that every Kashmiri is a victim of one or the other form of torture and more than 60,000 Kashmiris have experienced third degree torture at the hands of Indian armed forces in the past 20 years.
Gautam Navlakha while speaking at a seminar “Campaign against Torture”, organized by Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Rights` Movement in collaboration with Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) in Baramulla, said that phenomenon of torture, which had been used from time to time as weapon by Indian troops in the Valley, would stop only when draconian Armed Forces Special Power Act was revoked.
Navlakha said that torture was considered a potent weapon in the sub-conventional warfare and India had been using it in Kashmir to curb the movement of right to self-determination. He said that it is very difficult to get justice for torture in India because there is no law in Indian constitution, which can deliver justice to the victims of torture. “Due to this reason in most circumstances it is futile to approach law,” he added.
The rights activist said that in the light of United Nations` definition of torture, every single person of Kashmir had been a victim of torture “as they had been living in the presence of 7,00,000 hostile Indian troops.” “Physical torture has evidence like injury marks etc but a victim of mental torture, which every Kashmiri certainly is, has no evidence to plead his case,” he added. Navlakha maintained that unless Kashmiris were freed from the clutches of Indian forces and given a chance to decide their future these things would continue to happen.
Another human rights activist, Parvez Imroz said that India had been using torture as a weapon of war to terrorize people and to curb the political movement of right to self-determination. “There are about four lakh people who have been tortured from a moderate to severe degree. 99 percent of all those who are arrested are subjected to torture,” he said.
Other speakers on the occasion emphasized the need to encourage the survivors of torture so that they would not feel isolated in the society. They also expressed their concern over the silence of the international organizations working on the issue of torture in different countries.