The Big Story: Higher standard

The timing was unfortunate. On the same day that the Supreme Court stayed investigation into the killing of three civilians in Shopian, Jammu and Kashmir, it emerged that more civilians had died at the hands of security forces in yet another incident, again in Shopian district. And here too, the Army and the elected government of Jammu and Kashmir do not see eye to eye: The forces claim that those killed were “overground workers” of militant groups, while the Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said civilians had been “caught in the crossfire”.

The Supreme Court’s decision came in the case involving Major Aditya Kumar, whose name is mentioned in the First Information Report filed by Jammu and Kashmir Police in the killing of three civilians in February. The Army claims it killed the civilians in “self defence”, but witnesses from around the scene say the killings were targeted at those who had put up a black flag near the site of an encounter where a militant had been killed.

When asked what the charges were, the state government told the Supreme Court that the FIR included sections related to murder and attempt to murder but that Major Kumar – whose father had filed a plea seeking for the case to be quashed – had not been mentioned in the accused column. His name, instead, only featured in the description of the incident, and so the government asked the court to allow the investigation to proceed. Indeed, Mufti has said earlier that the case should be allowed to reach its “logical conclusion”.

The court, however, pointed out that, “after all, it is a case of an Army officer, not an ordinary criminal,” and ordered the state government not to proceed with the investigation until April 24, when the case came up again. The state government lawyer asked whether being an Army officer was a “licence to kill” to which Attorney General KK Venugopal, appearing for the Centre, responded with typical rhetoric, asking about the licence of mobs to attack the Army. The state government lawyer also made it clear that the Army had refused to co-operate with the police’s investigation into the case.

The Supreme Court is right. The matter is not just that of an ordinary criminal. From a technical perspective, there is the question of whether the state police can indeed proceed with an investigation against Army officers without the sanction of the Centre in a state where the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act is in force. But taking a societal view, its opinion should be read more broadly: An Army officer accused of a crime is not an ordinary criminal – we should hold our military to a higher standard. These are the people meant to protect and defend our freedom and law and order, it will not do if they are seen as being allowed to break the law with impunity.

The chances that the Centre will take this view are minimal, considering it celebrated the illegal and inhumane act of using a human shield, even awarding a medal to the Army officer involved though an investigation was on at that moment. But the Supreme Court should see the bigger picture here. Crimes must be investigated and the guilty punished, regardless of who committed them. The deaths of civilians in targeted killings is illegal and will only scorch the earth beneath the people of Kashmir further.

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Punditry

  1. “The promotion of paddy in Punjab was the result of a policy of the Centre to feed the nation. And now the Centre says that it is the responsibility of Punjab alone to ward off the state’s impending desertification,” writes Ranjit Singh Ghuman in the Tribune.
  2. “We need urgent and sensible labour laws reforms to give exit options to Dalit women trapped in a system that will not even let them get to their 40th birthday, let alone give them cause to celebrate it,” writes Shruti Rajagopalan in Mint.
  3. “The list of encounterables is never static,” writes Manisha Sethi in the Indian Express. “Yesterday, it was terror accused, today “notorious criminals”, tomorrow it will be those charged with rape, day after thieves and pickpockets, and the following day, striking workers – any one in fact who can be demonised and whose “crimes” can be shown to be repugnant enough. Where will this lead us? Exceptions never remain exceptions. They will come to consume all of us eventually.

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