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Sit in protest by APDP puts up its demands

KT NEWS SERVICE. Dated: 3/11/2019 11:13:31 AM

SRINAGAR, Mar 10: Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) today held a sit-in protest here and demanded the return of their dear ones, who have been subjected to enforced disappearance by various security agencies.
Members of APDP reached here from different parts of Valley to take part in the protest. Carrying banners, their resolved to carry forward their struggle for justice.
Speaking during the protest, Parveena Ahangar, chairperson APDP, reiterated the demand for ratification of international convention for protection of all persons from enforced disappearances. "In a situation where India has not ratified the international convention for protection of all persons from enforced disappearances and the vagueness of India’s domestic law that does not enumerate enforced disappearance as an offense, the challenges in pursuing legal struggle is insurmountable," she said.
Perveena added that the ratification will help to bring out the special nature and circumstances in which such crimes are perpetrated and will make more evident the multiple rights that are violated as a result of an enforced disappearance. "We also demand that law on enforced disappearance be passed by the Jammu and Kashmir legislature so that the vagueness and ambiguity in the Indian domestic penal provisions can be overcome and the perpetrators could be prosecuted," she said.
The chairperson stated that APDP condemns the recent attack on the Kashmiri students, businessmen, and others in the cities across India. It also condemns the harassment of Kashmiris at the hands of the Indian forces in Kashmir and demands that the harassment of the people, especially the youth, should stop at one. "We urge the international human rights bodies to take note of the situation and urge India to stop the harassments," she said.
Parveena said APDP also strongly condemns the destruction of the houses at the gun-battle sites by the Indian armed forces. "It is a grave human rights violation as it impinges upon the right to live and right to housing of the victim. We urge the Indian state to immediately rehabilitate the victims and stop destroying houses," she viewed.
The chairperson stated that APDP also commemorates the struggles of the Kashmiri women and salutes their long struggles for justice and against the" state terror in Kashmir." "We urge the world community to take look at the crimes against Kashmir women done by the state and pour in for support of Kashmiri women to get justice," she said.
Parveena said the state not only denies the phenomena of enforced disappearances, instead, but it has also legislated certain laws, like AFSPA, and provided full impunity to the perpetrators, thus protecting them, thereby creating hurdles in acquiring justice.
"Nevertheless, APDP has been resisting this suppression for years now and has raised the issue of the enforced disappearances with the world community. The state has been at war with the memory of the people and it has time and again tied various tactics to erase this issue from the public memory. APDP is fighting that battle too; not let people forget the issue and to counter the state’s designs.
APDP has been documenting the cases and had been active to bring the issue of ED to the public; it is a counter-movement against the forgetfulness," the chairperson said.
According to her, in its 2017 report, on human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir, the UN HRC, strongly condemned the Indian state and stated that “impunity for enforced or involuntary disappearances in Kashmir continues as there has been little movement towards credibly investigating complaints, including into alleged sites of mass graves in the Kashmir Valley and Jammu region.”
"This was also stated ex-UN high commissioner for human right, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, and there is almost total impunity for enforced disappearances in Kashmir," she said.