 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. In yet another incident of army firing in Kashmir, six people lost their lives on Sunday in Chopian. This incident again has a lot of problematic aspects as a narrative given by the army and the accounts given by the locals have a lot of differences. To discuss this incident and to discuss this government's policy towards Kashmir in general, we have with us today Gautam Nablaka, who is a democratic rights activist. So Gautam, welcome to NewsClick. Six people lost their lives as you know. And while the army named two of them militants and the army called the other four as overground workers, but the locals have called them as civilians and even the chief minister of Kashmir, Mahmood Mufthi called them civilians. So what is this difference between civilians and overground workers? What do you think about this? Well, an overground worker is a notion that has been promoted by the armed forces in Kashmir around in the millennium, you know, 21st century as a way of claiming that there are civilians who are hand in gloves with the armed militants and therefore they are at par with the militants themselves despite the fact that they remain unarmed. This is something that the armed forces have been claiming and if you recall the statement of the army chief last year, when soon after he took overcharge as superseding two generals, senior to him by passing to general, he had said that we will be going after the overground workers. So this tussle between this designating civilians and passing them passing killings of civilians as killings of overground worker is in fact a way of trying to justify killing of civilians at one level. But let us look little closely at the two incidents that have taken place in Shampya, the Govanpura incident from January 27th in which three civilians were killed and this particular incident from Panu last Sunday in which four civilians were killed. Let us look at the sequence of events because it will help explain what the problem is. Now the army had claimed that they had taken out while they were going passing to the Govanpura village, they came under stone pelters and their personnel were injured, vehicles were damaged, one of the JCO's junior commission officer was on the birth of being lynched, therefore they opened fire and killed it. Now when the, but from the subsequent events, I mean information that has come out and information that has also come out in the print media, it makes it very clear that the civilians, the villagers contest this version of the army story. They point out in the army in the morning there was an army convoy which passed through that village, they had a tussle with the locals over some posters and banners and the buntings that had been put up to commemorate the death of some civilians including a local boy who was a militant. And that in the evening around 3 quarter past 3 another convoy of the army despite the fact that one had already passed through and encountered this, you know there was this tussle, they decided to once again make their way through the same village, it's whereupon they came under attack. Now the villagers point out couple of things, they said that in the first place how is it possible for an armed convoy JCO to be picked out from a vehicle, an armored carrier vehicle by the villagers if they wanted to even lynch him, even if there was a desire, where was it possible, how was it possible for them to drag out, they I mean the soldiers would have opened fire right there and then had that been the case. Subsequent information that has been brought out in Indian Express by Musamil Jaleel points out that despite repeated reminders the army has refused to to cooperate with the police in their investigations. So therefore when the police asked them for list of names of the injured soldiers, they wanted to look at the vehicles that had been damaged, they wanted to know what kind of weapons were used and the ammunition that was employed, how many rounds were fired etc. Routine police inquiry, the stock reply from the army was that the matter is being looked into and therefore verified and therefore they refused to cooperate with the police. Now in the second incident if you come to Panu, so there are a lot of questions about the first incident itself. And also Mahmub Mahmukhti had said in the assembly that the police had told the army, had given the army a warning to not pass through the air. Yes, in fact there was a police advisory Mahmub Mahmukhti pointed out in the assembly, floor of the assembly on January 29 which said that despite the advisory of the police the army refused to abide by that and decided to go through it although they had been warned that things can flare up. In the second incident if you look at it, the army statements have been improved, improving over a period. The first statement only claimed that the one so called terrorist had been killed when they defied the orders of a mobile checkpoint to stop the terrorist open fire, the army had to retaliate and in which this terrorist died. Subsequently they added that three more people, overground workers were traveling with that militant who was killed in the same vehicle. Subsequent information came out that actually the civilians were found in a second vehicle and they had carried no weapons, there was nothing incriminating found. Low and behold on a day later a third vehicle is discovered with another civilian unarmed also dead and body of a militant who must have run away from the so called encounter site was found several kilometers away in an orchard. The point is all these things make it very clear that there is a need for an investigation, an affair investigation. Which the army has contested and they went I mean the father of the of a serving officer which is unprecedented has gone to the supreme court and the supreme court very nearly without even looking into it, fallen prey to the media build up and the pressure that was built up outside and have accepted the petition. Yeah so before we go to that I would like to point out that in the Sunday's incident as you were saying third car which was discovered 10 kilometers away the father of the civilian who died also pointed out that the his son's body was in the car while there was no blood in the car and also there was a bullet in the bag but there was no bullet in the in the in the car seat. So again that raises a lot of questions that he was shot from the back it's very clear from the wound mark. So yeah of course that shows the need for an investigation as you said now the supreme court has stayed investigation in the previous case of Shopee. Now the interesting thing here about FIRs is why is it the army so makes such a human cry about even registering of an FIR. Let me trace back in 1992 April when Jammu and Kashmir was under governor's rule the executive order was issued asking all the police stations in Jammu and Kashmir not to register any FIR mentioning naming any armed forces personnel. This had to be withdrawn in 1992 meeting objections from from the from the lawyers bar association and other from the local judiciary. But it seems that the same demand which had been rejected and withdrawn in 1992 has come back and in fact with greater force as a as a as a consequence of a orchestrated campaign back now this time by the judiciary to to ensure that this they this you know becomes a legal. So I mean the legal immunity enjoyed by the soldiers fighting in armed conflict at home against our own people they will be not be even if a civilian is injured killed molested sexual violence is perpetrated against them that no FIR will be recorded against them without the sanction of the central. Yeah now there has been an affidavit by the center and they've said that there has to be a total bar on the Jammu and Kashmir government registering any FIR or instituting criminal proceedings in this in this case or in any other case which I mean what does that say about this government's policy towards Kashmir I mean the army has had legal immunity in the past of course in all these conflicted areas but this government stance seems to be particularly harder towards the civilians of Kashmir and of course like put in sort of shielding the army. You're very correct because even in the case of Manipur when the matter came before the two-judge bench of Justice Lokur and Lalit Mukul Rohodgi was the Tony General had made the same plea and said that no FIR can be registered in whatever is done in the course of a duty. So this seems to be the policy of the government which what which is what the present the new Tony General has reiterated before the Supreme Court. Now there are a couple of interesting points here. In a constitutional bench judgment in November 2013 Lalit Kumari versus state of UP it's a constitutional bench five-judge bench superior to the three-judge bench looking into this Shopeean incident had made it very clear complained about regarding any cognizable offense shall be recorded they have said that it's mandatory the police cannot refuse to do it. Now are we entering a period where there be a two-glass system meaning that there would be one law for the civilian and another law for government officers and especially the the government soldiers it's extremely dangerous. A you're already deploying an army which is trained in a very different way to fight an external enemy against our own people. If you provide them the same legal immunity which obviously soldiers require when they're fighting defending the borders does not apply because you are here confronted with the situation with the army is being deployed against your own people. So the same jurisdiction criminal courts jurisdiction ought to apply in order to ensure that army doesn't start acting with impunity and commit atrocities and crimes and also let me remind you the UN Human Rights Commission was very clear in opposing Armed Forces Special Powers Act that said and I quote them that it's a quote a symbol of excessive state power unquote this is what the UNHRC had said and requested the government of India repeatedly to review Armed Forces Special Powers Act. We know that the second administrative reform committee had also said that Armed Forces Special Powers Act ought to be revoked. We also know that Jeevan Reddy committee had asked for repeal of Armed Forces Special Powers Act. The point I'm trying to make is here is considered weighty well-reasoned arguments that have been put forward a variety of institutions international and domestic which have also had something critical to say about Armed Forces Special Powers Act yet the government rejecting that comes down to insist that even registration of an FIR requires sanction of the central government means that all avenues for the civilians are going to be shut in the name of what in the name of national interest fighting terrorists and things like that this is a good way of avoiding looking into and critically examining our own role government's own role our own government's role into making of the conflict that Jambon Kashmir is and for making it worse than what it it what it is. It is also a way in which you ensure that there is no record even through complaints you see recording an FIR is not the end of the road because it doesn't mean that it results in conviction it doesn't even mean that there will be any prosecution as we all know there have been 50 requests made by the in cases where FIRs have been registered for for proceedings to take place so the opposing it is also because please remember that there is no statute of limitation for war crimes. As a result if there is any written complaint an FIR constitutes a written complaint that has been registered is something that the Armed Forces personnel are scared of because they don't want any trail any leads because investigation can be opened up after 20 years 25 years and perpetrators can be brought to justice at that point so they want to erase they want to ensure that there are no records per se of anything it is this this makes it extremely dangerous because what you are saying is that the army has therefore or the armed forces have not only enjoy legal immunity they have a free hand in doing whatever they want to and the spate of killings increase in the number of killings of civilians points in the direction that this seems to be the purpose behind operation all out which is which began last year in May with much fanfare and this links up to something that I like to to point out that if you remember last year army chief had said in the context of expressing his concern about the situation in Jammu and Kashmir he had said something which I like to quote quote as we are conducting operations against militants we find that the local population is somehow not supportive of the actions of the security forces unquote now it's a null he pointed out at something which is actually the actual ground situation in Jammu and Kashmir the issue is that the people are opposed they're not supporting army operation which means that all these operations are taking place in the midst of strong and popular opposition of the civilian population of Jammu of of Kashmir in particular instead of heeding this and learning the lessons or actually inferring the proper lessons from this situation that exists on the ground if you use it to say well we will impose a will and extract acquiescence or submission of the people so that they accept and support us I think it just tells you that the Indian Republic as we all of us imagine or have been taught to imagine as a democratic constitutional republic is actually being being we are being told that's not to be and it's this which is scary okay so that's all the time we have for today Gautam thank you for joining us in this discussion and thank you thank you for watching this click