Claiming that those Army men found guilty of human rights violations in Jammu & Kashmir and the North-East are dealt with severely, the Army on Friday, however, asserted that more than 90 per cent of such allegations were false.
Backing its claim with statistics, the Army said in the last 20 years, 1,574 complaints were filed against the troops and 1,490 of them were found to be baseless. The force said only 3.59 per cent of the allegations against it were found to be true and investigations into 72 complaints were still going on.
Maintaining that the Army does not tolerate human rights violations while fighting insurgency in Jammu & Kashmir and the North-East, 129 personnel including 59 in Jammu & Kashmir were found to be guilty in all these years, officials said on Friday.
This comes in the backdrop of the Army recently ordering court martial proceedings against six of its men including a Colonel and a Major for allegedly
killing three youths and labelling them as militants in Machhil in Jammu & Kashmir.
The Machhil incident came to light on April 30, 2010 when bodies of three youths were shown by Army as militants who were trying to sneak into the Valley from higher reaches of Machhil in North Kashmir with arms and ammunition. It had later claimed that they were Pakistani terrorists.
Subsequent investigations by the Jammu & Kashmir police revealed that the three youths namely Mohamad Shafi, Shehzad Ahmed and Riyaz Ahmed were residents of Nadihal in Baramulla district. This led to a public outcry and people took to streets staging dharnas.
As regards upholding human rights in insurgency affected States, they said the Army has devised time-tested standard operating procedures while operating in Jammu & Kashmir and the troops are sensitised before induction.
Moreover, the commanding officers regularly brief their soldiers on following the procedures strictly while undertaking cordon and search operations and carrying out anti-militancy operations in remote villages.
Giving an example, they said elderly people of the village are taken into confidence before the troops surround a suspected hideout of the terrorists and give due warning to them to surrender before engaging them in a fire fight.
Similarly, the local commanders are instructed to avoid collateral damage during an encounter and take special care if women are trapped inside a house or a built up area where the firefight is on. In fact, in some instances, the terrorists are allowed to escape to save lives of women, children and innocent persons, they said.