31 January 2000
South China Morning Post
NEW DELHI – Human rights groups are alarmed over a proposal to combat rising terrorism in India, arguing a similar law in the 1980s harassed minorities while doing little to stem violence.
Parliament is due to debate the Criminal Law Amendment Bill when it resumes next month.
It would give police sweeping powers to act against the terrorists, who New Delhi says are backed by Pakistan.
Pakistan, with whom India has fought several wars over the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir, denies any role in the increasing violence, which ranges from raids on Indian army camps in Kashmir to train bombings and the hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane.
Rights groups said the proposed law would result in state-sponsored persecution of minority groups, particularly Muslims, while failing to address the root of the problem – lack of development in India’s northeast and poor relations with Pakistan.
The Government introduced the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act in 1983 to combat Sikh militancy in the northwestern state of Punjab. It was later expanded to include 23 of India’s 25 states.
But Ravi Nair, director of the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre, said the law, which was cancelled in 1995, netted the largest number of arrests in states with no terrorism.
Furthermore, less than one per cent of the 76,036 people detained under the old law were found guilty of terrorist activities.
That meant 75,000 citizens, a large majority members of minority groups, were held without good reason.
The bill is part of a government effort to rebuild its image after the humiliating December hijacking, in which it was forced to hand over three jailed Islamic militants in exchange for a planeload of hostages.
Officials say terrorism has claimed at least 30,000 lives in the past 10 years and cost the country US$14 billion (HK$108 billion).
But with police credibility at its lowest in decades, doubts are being cast on whether the force should be trusted to handle the broader powers provided under the bill.
“The police-community relationship has been going downhill over the years and the gap between public expectation and police performance has been constantly widening,” federal Home Secretary Kamal Pande told a group of police trainees this month.
Rights groups say police brutality and corruption are increasing at an alarming rate, partly due to growing police links with criminals and the misuse of the force by corrupt politicians seeking to settle personal scores.
In Uttar Pradesh state, the National Human Rights Commission recorded more than 200,000 cases of police brutality in 1998-99.
The bill allows police to extract confessions under torture, although suspects are supposed to sign an affidavit saying they confessed freely, while making it illegal to withhold information about terrorists.
Journalists who interview Islamic militants in Kashmir, for example, could be arrested for failing to disclose information.
Critics of the proposed law, including leading constitutional lawyers and a former director of the Central Bureau of Investigation, have urged the Government to make the bill subject to an annual parliamentary review.
“As a human rights group, we clearly agree with the Government’s position that terrorism has to be fought,” said Mr Nair.
“But it has to be fought by a law that is subject to judicial scrutiny.”