New Delhi: In the wake of the killing of a
teenager allegedly by a BSF constable, Jammu and Kashmir Awami
National Conference on Tuesday asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
to ensure zero tolerance for violation of human rights by
security forces and set up fast track courts for speedy
justice.
The JKANC also demanded the repeal of Armed Forces
Special Powers Act (AFPSA), which confers some special powers
to the security forces, from Jammu and Kashmir.
Terming Kashmir "a place of living dead", JKANC president
Khalida Shah alleged that the state as well as the Centre were
not trying hard to deliver justice to the people of the state.
"No one is trying hard to get us justice and whatever is
happening is due to the notorious AFSPA. Just in a matter of a
month, nine innocent people have been killed in the valley
itself," she alleged while talking to reporters here.
Shah also asked the Prime Minister to put his policy of
zero tolerance in use and bring the violators of human rights
and civil liberties of the people of Kashmir, against whom
cases are registered since 1989.
Expressing disapproval over the CBI report on the Shopian
case which ruled out rape and murder of two women, she said,
"there is no doubt that it was a murder...in this case we do
not trust the CBI report."
"Army as a matter of fact is for the protection of people
but in our state, it performs an exactly opposite role," Shah,
the president of JKANC which was founded by her husband and
late Chief Minister J M Shah, alleged.
Asked about the secretary-level talks between India and
Pakistan on February 25, she claimed, "talks will be
inconclusive because Kashmiri people are not a part of it."
She said there was a "deep pain and anguish" in Kashmir
over the killing of 17-year-old Zahid Farooq.
Farooq was shot dead in the outskirts of Srinagar on
February 5 leading to fresh protests in the valley.
BSF Commandant R K Birdi, who is alleged to have ordered
a constable to shoot the teenager, was suspended on February
13 along with 14 other men of his battalion.
Shah also demanded the setting up of fast track courts to
try and punish human rights violators.
PTI
First Published: Tuesday, February 16, 2010, 19:07