In the absence of a legislation to deal with refugees, India continues to treat Rohingya refugees in an arbitrary manner, discriminating against them in relation to refugees from other nations, and inhumanely detains and deports them, in violation of customary international law and its own international treaty obligations.
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HASINA Begum, a Rohingya refugee staying in India, was deported to Myanmar on March 22 from the Indian border town of Moreh in Manipur’s Tengnoupal district. She had been in detention at the Kathua sub-jail in the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir since March 6 last year. She had UNHCR [United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees] registration no. 305-13C01783 as a refugee in India. Her husband and three minor children are still living in the most abject conditions in a slum in Jammu. The minor children have been inconsolable since the detention and deportation of their mother.
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The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act [AFSPA] was passed by the Indian Parliament on September 11, 1958. The Parliament was told it would last no longer than a year. In 2022, we are still waiting for that year to end.
The Act contains immunity clauses for the armed forces even if they are involved in violations of the right to life or torture.
In theory, the Union Government could give permission upon application for prosecution of armed forces personnel accused of offences. According to a question raised in the Rajya Sabha (upper house of Parliament) in 2015, a total of 38 requests for the sanction of prosecution under AFSPA and the Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act, 1990 were made between June 1991 and March 2015. Of the 38, permission was denied in 30 cases while the remaining eight requests were pending as of March 2015.
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Northern Ireland’s Royal Ulster Constabulary experience offers a lesson to Indian lawmakers: the militarised policing of a local population by a centrally-controlled force that has been awarded extraordinary powers without accountability measures will likely result in human rights violation, explains RAVI NAIR.
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MOST modern democracies adhere to the policy of separation between the military and the police. Many nations have made limited exceptions for certain paramilitary forces.
Nevertheless, as Northern Ireland’s experience illustrates, the mixing of forces with inherently different mandates (armed combat versus law enforcement) and targets (enemy versus local citizen) is likely to do more harm than good.
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Amidst the recent decision to increase the jurisdiction of the Border Security Force in West Bengal, Punjab and Assam, RAVI NAIR examines the encroachment of Constitutional federalism by a union government gradually inching the country towards an authoritarian state.