Kashmir’s torture trail, a documentary program aired by
UK’s Channel 4, is a sombre compilation of the gruesome stories detailing the
systematic use of torture against the people in the Indian administered Kashmir
by the state authorities in the backdrop of a bloody territorial war that has
gripped this picturesque Himalayan region.
The documentary spins around a heroic lawyer fighting
passionately for justice to the victims. A gut-wrenching account of torture that includes stories
about flesh being sliced off from body and then victims made to eat that is certainly going to make a spectator wriggle hands with nausea and cringe back with the horror.
It takes us to a terrifying rendezvous with the ground
reality about the ignominy and humiliations these tortured victims had faced
but the documentary occasionally goes hyperbolic with its gaudy and hackneyed
descriptions of India’s ostensibly bullyragging military might in Kashmir.
Distressing, the stories in the video depicts the harrowing
path these people, facing abuse at the hands of the state, have to take.
Elsewhere, an interview with a woman who is suspected of
having links with the militants, tells her plaintive experience when two cops
had ran a nail-fitted roller over her hands and legs followed by an anticipated rape – all this in her teen hood , gives goose-bumps.
These stories are the grim reminder how army in Kashmir have
miserably failed to uphold human rights while battling the insurgency and how its clumsy gov’t stood helpless
in bringing to justice the rogue forces that perpetrated the crimes.
The biggest obstacle to justice has been this law: Armed Forces
Special Powers Act (AFSPA). Tossed by many as draconian, the law gives a
certain amount of impunity to the security forces from prosecution. “But the problem is not the law; problem is the
unaccountability in the system” a high ranking police officer in the state told
me once. There is a provision that
allows guilty men to be sentenced only if the central gov’t permits. But that
permission is rarely given.
Earlier this year, The Hindu reported that in the past four
years alone India’s Home Ministry has shot down at least 42 such requests citing
“lazy and shoddy” investigation by police.
Kashmir is recovering from the conflict but scars of
injustice still remain. It is presently
savoring an uncanny spell of peace govt tries to maintain, lock stock and
barrel. Just as one can assume from the documentary, most of Kashmiri Muslims
are bitterly opposed to the Indian rule. From distant corners of the web world
to the streets and alleyways of Kashmir, they have unambiguously tried to give
out this message: “We are not Indian’s.”
A full blown insurgency that begun in early 90’s drove a
communal wedge between the revolting Muslims and the Pandits who forms the
indigenous Hindu minority. What we see
today is the aftermath of the gory war that ensued 90’s rebellion leading to
deaths, destruction and desolation. Adding to the plight, justice still eludes
the victims terrorized by the state forces and the militants, alike. Kashmir’s
torture trail is yet another attempt highlighting the hardships of many Kashmiri’s
caught between the tight grip of conflict's pincers and does go a long way in striking the
moral chords.
