The Army is considering various
options to try 5 officers, including a
Brigadier, for the alleged murder of 5
Kashmiri civilians suspected of being
foreign terrorists involved in the
massacre of 36 Sikhs at Chattingsphora
village in Kashmir on Mar 20, 2000.
Five Pakistani terrorists swooped down
hours before the arrival of US
President Bill Clinton and massacred
26 Sikh civilians to make a point and
provoke an armed response.
Soon after, a cordon and search
operation was launched by a joint
force of Army and Kashmir police which
5 individuals and labeled them
terrorists. There was much fanfare,
appreciation, and eulogy for catching
the criminals. Subsequent
investigations accused the Army and
police of faking the encounter and
that those killed were civilians.
The Central Bureau of Investigation
(CBI) was called in to investigate the
case which implicated the Army while
exonerating the Kashmiri police. While
filing its case, the district
magistrate gave the Army the option of
organizing a court martial to
determine the outcome. The Indian
Constitution allows the security
forces to deal with their legal issues
themselves outside the ambit of the
civil administration.
However, that option may be hard as
the case is with a civilian body,
involves civilians, and in cooperation
with a civilian body. The Army says
that it has to rely on CBI reports to
go forward with its court martial and
says that is something that it cannot
accept. Further, sources in the Army
also say that the security forces
acted on specific inputs from the
police and intelligence officials and
wonder why they are being accused of
something when the civilian body was
part of the operation and provided the
targets.
In many cases, the Army has
increasingly found itself to be the
fall guy as issues are being
politicized. This is not to say that
excesses have not happened and that
Army is above human rights violations.
While that was largely cited in early
90s, the National Human Rights Council
(NHRC), the Army’s own Human Rights
Cell, and State Human Rights Council (SHRC)
have kept the security forces honest.
