10 Lakh Compensation to man used as Human Shield – J&K Human Rights Commission

Sharply castigating the Army and State for using a 26 year old weaver as a human shield, a bench of the Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission headed by Justice (Retd.) Bilal Nazki ordered the state government to pay him a compensation of Rupees 10 lakhs..The SHRC’s 10 July ruling came in a case brought by Mohammad Ahsan Untoo, Chairman of the civil society organization, International Forum for Justice and Human Rights Jammu and Kashmir ..Justice Nazki held that Farooq Ahmad Dar, who, on the orders of Major Leetul Gogoi of the 53 Rashtriya Rifles was chained to the bonnet of a military jeep and made to travel in that condition through nine villages in Kashmir’s Budhgam District, had been subjected to “torture and humiliation”, besides “wrongful confinement”, resulting in “psychiatric stress which may remain with him for the entire life”..Directing the government to implement the order in six weeks, the SHRC ruled,.“For the humiliation, physical and psychological torture, stressful and wrongful confinement, the commission thinks it appropriate to direct the state government to pay Rs 10 lakh compensation to the victim.” .While arriving at its ruling, the SHRC referred to the Supreme Court’s judgement in Prem Shankar Shukla v Delhi Administration (1980), which admonished the government for fettering human beings like animals. Doing so is akin to torture, defiles their dignity, and vulgarises society, the court had held..The SHRC’s ruling is recommendatory in nature and requires the State government’s approval for implementation. Although the Commission strongly deprecated the army’s action, it stopped short of passing any directives against it because it lacks jurisdiction over the army..It is worth mentioning that the use of human shields has been held to be illegal in Israel as well, where the army uses Palestinians in the Gaza strip and elsewhere quite frequently for its own purposes..On 6 October 2005, Justice Aharon Barak of the Supreme Court of Israel, in a case brought by various human rights organizations, held that the army’s long-standing practice of using Palestinian civilians as human shields in combat is illegal under international law..It said the military’s claim to have amended the procedure to allow civilians to “volunteer” to work with the army was still unacceptable because it was unlikely anyone would freely do so. “You cannot exploit the civilian population for the army’s military needs, and you cannot force them to collaborate”, the ruling said..Read the Commission’s Press release here:.Image taken from here.