Thursday, 05 Jan 2012 at 09:080
Ravi Nitesh
Kashmir is a place where India has deployed highest number of security personnel to protect people from ‘insurgents’ and ‘foreign attacks’. However this high concentration of troops has resulted in brazen human rights violation in the state.
The case in point is Boniyar. The incident occurred when a group of people were protesting against erratic electricity and CISF opened fire over the group, which caused a death of a youth and injuries to several others.
Kashmir produces enough electricity but send to others states thereby completely ignoring the need of locals. People here face problems of load shedding. Is it not the regional discrimination and violation of the right to equality?
Is it wrong to protest for basic essential demands like electricity? The demand is related to development. To protest is an integral part of any political system. Is the incident at Boniyar an effort on part of government to pressurise people to demand what is lawfully granted to them under constitution.
Why the government once again failed to control the crowd? There were no efforts on part of administration to deal with the situation effectively. If it was so necessary to use force, why people were not lathi charged?
Human life is precious; it is unfortunate to loss life like this. It is a clear case of human rights violation, discrimination, and use of excessive force, action without mind and example of military rule in a democracy.
We all, who believe in democratic values and strongly, condemn this unfortunate incident. Now that Chief Minister of the state has called Boniyar incident as murder, he should ensure that the culprit, who is responsible for this dreaded act, be punished.
Author resides in New Delhi, he is a social activist, president: Mission Bhartiyam and can be mailed ravinitesh@gmail.com.
(http://risingkashmir.com/news/people-vs-power-20395.aspx)
