Torture widespread in Kashmir: WikiLeaks
Never Got Access To 'Notorious Detention Centre' Cargo Building In Srinagar: ICRC
LALIT K JHA
Washington, Dec 17: In a rare briefing with the then US ambassador to India, the ICRC in 2005 expressed concern over alleged human rights violations in Kashmir and spoke about torture in detention centres, though it pointed out that the situation was much better than in the 1990s.
The International Committee for the Red Cross stressed that it was not asking for US government action, but may seek to mobilise support in the future, "if its relations with the Government of India do not improve," says the secret cable coming out of the US Embassy in New Delhi.
Made public by WikiLeaks, the cable signed off by the then US Ambassador to India David Mulford, has been classified by the then Deputy Chief of Mission Robert Blake, who now is the Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia.
The dispatches reveal that use of electrocution, beatings and sexual humiliation against hundreds of detainees in Kashmir.
The most highly charged dispatch is likely to be an April 2005 cable from the US embassy in Delhi which reports that the ICRC had become frustrated with the Indian government which, they said, had not acted to halt the "continued ill-treatment of detainees".
The embassy reported the ICRC concluded that India "condones torture" and that the torture victims were civilians as militants were routinely killed.
The ICRC has a long-standing policy of engaging directly with governments and avoiding the media, so the briefing remained secret.
The ICRC staff told the US diplomats they had made 177 visits to detention centres in Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere in India between 2002 and 2004, and had met 1,491 detainees. They had been able to interview 1,296 privately.
In 852 cases, the detainees reported ill-treatment, the ICRC said. A total of 171 described being beaten and 681 said they had been subjected to one or more of six forms of torture.
These included 498 on which electricity had been used, 381 who had been suspended from the ceiling, 294 who had muscles crushed in their legs by prison personnel sitting on a bar placed across their thighs, 181 whose legs had been stretched by being "split 180 degrees", 234 tortured with water and 302 "sexual" cases, the ICRC were reported to have told the Americans.
"Numbers add up to more than 681, as many detainees were subjected to more than one form of IT [ill-treatment]," the cable said.
The ICRC said all branches of the Indian security forces used these forms of ill-treatment and torture.
While acknowledging improvement in overall situation in the Valley, the briefer suggested there were persistent problems like widespread use of "IT" (ill-treatment) and "torture" during interrogation that takes place in the presence of officers, and said the ICRC has raised these issues with the government of India for more than 10 years.
It said ICRC has never obtained access to the 'Cargo Building,' "the most notorious detention centre in Srinagar".
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