By Dr P S Sahni
Co-Written by Dr. P. S. Sahni&Shobha Aggarwal
For over a month practically the entire Kashmir valley has been under a state of curfew. The innocuous term curfew camouflages the extreme torture and suffering inflicted on the people; curfew actually is ‘house arrest’ of every citizen from a newborn to a person in his nineties. The orders for a curfew may emanate from a magistrate imposing section 144, IPC which restricts people from assembling in public place. Thus millions are put under house arrest without as much as trial by any court of law. Adinfinitum the curfew hours keep on getting extended into days, weeks and months. Meanwhile the fundamental rights of people to life, liberty and equality are flagrantly violated. Long term use of curfew violates the norms laid down by the United Nations and is also in breach of the international law on the issue.
Indefinite curfew limits movement of people; they cannot go to the market place to buy food and medicines; people cannot attend to school, colleges or offices; arranging a funeral for a deceased is a harrowing experience. Reaching a hospital for a medical emergency would jeopardize the patient’s life as also that of the attendant,since both of them could be shot at sight. If the patient and the attendant escape death due to being shot at, they risk being injured or blinded by rubber pellets used by the police/ para-military/ army personnel. Since sanitation and garbage removal is practically impossible wherever curfew has been imposed for long, people risk facing epidemics of gastroenteritis; stagnant water breeding mosquitoes could lead to large number of cases of malaria, dengue, chikungunyaetc. People are at risk of getting any infection since they are unable to get proper nutrition and food. It is an understatement to say that these people are victims of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). In fact all social interactions come to a standstill. A variety of steps taken by the authorities during indefinite curfew imposition viz stoppage of newspapers; clamping down of internet service (internet curfew) and cable services/news channels and even telecommunication effectively ensures that individuals/families suffer the ignominy of being in a solitary cell. The feeling is no different from that of a death row convict kept in an isolation cell within the four walls of a jail compound. Ironically the whole of Kashmir has been compared to an open air prison. An apt simile indeed!
There is of course the Armed Forces Special Powers Act under which any house can be raided and the people terrorized into total submission. The under one million strong army personnel – viewed by Kashmiris as an army of occupation – would kill with impunity any one it deems to be a militant. The army personnel working under the umbrella of AFSPA are able to get away with crushing anyone’s liberty and freedom. To hammer this point for the benefit of those Indians who tend to distance themselves from the Azadi movement in Kashmir it would be instructive if they were to read up the political history of India under Mrs. Gandhi’s Internal Emergency years, 1975-77. At least Mrs. Gandhi had to promulgate an Emergency; at least the judiciary had to go through the farce of ADM Jabalpur case known as the habeas corpus case; at least the Attorney General of India had then confessed before a Constitution bench of the Supreme Court of India that the right to life stands suspended; at least there wasa redemption – that at least one judge by the name of Justice H.R. Khanna stuck his neck out. But what about Kashmir? The case pertaining to the ongoing developments in Kashmir is being heard by the Supreme Court of India but the truth is being hidden from the court by the rulers in Delhi. What is easily forgotten presently is that it is the political establishment in India as well as the independence of press and judiciary whose credibility is at stake. The whole world watches in silence. Worse, the U.N. has lately made it clear that it would shut its eyes to these developments in Kashmir.
Curfew as a psychological warfare
The torture suffered by the people during prolonged and sustained curfew should not be underestimated. The conventional torture of a single accused in custody may get to be in public domain occasionally, resulting in a sequence of events which may entail a magisterial enquiry and punishment of the guilty police personnel involved in custodial torture or unnecessary deprivation of personal liberty beyond the period stipulated in law. Such a process does not even get to be thought of and reported and acted upon to ensure that further torture is stopped and those responsible for perpetrating prolonged curfew on a mass of citizens get to face an enquiry. Such is the very nature of mass torture during prolonged curfew extending beyond months. The indefinite curfew imposed upon the people of Kashmir appears to be a collective punishment imposed upon thos