EVEN though he was breaking no new ground, the UN envoy on human rights chose New Delhi as the venue to tell India that democracy and special powers for armed forces for tackling popular causes did not go together. Talking to journalists on Friday after visiting India-held Kashmir and other insurgency-hit areas, Christof Heyns, the world body’s special rapporteur on extrajudicial and summary executions, said the Armed Forces Special Powers Act was “hated” and the head of the held territory’s human rights commission had called it “draconian”. His main findings were that extrajudicial killings continued in India, and a number of UN bodies considered AFSPA “a violation of international law as well”.

The UN envoy’s findings fall in line with reports by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the United Nations’ annual world review, some of India’s own NGOs and sections of the media, all of which regard AFSPA as a law that has enabled the security forces to indulge in blatant human rights violations with impunity. The worst part of the law is that soldiers accused of killings, torture and disappearances in held Kashmir or India’s troubled northeast cannot be prosecuted, except through a complicated process of permission from the central government. The held territory’s chief executive, Omar Abdullah, too wants AFSPA to be withdrawn in phases. Initially, he believes, the law should be withdrawn from areas where the Indian army has not been operating for years. The perpetuation of special powers has enabled the Indian army to use brute force to crush the Kashmiri people’s legitimate struggle for freedom. New Delhi should realise it would have a positive impact on India-Pakistan relations if it addressed the world community’s human rights concerns in the valley and ended the stifling atmosphere in which the Kashmiri people have been living for decades.