Published: Fri, 11 January 2013 10:30 PM
On Wednesday, the police registered a case in Baramulla police station after a 2-minute video-clip surfaced showing scores of policemen thrashing two youth before forcing them to strip. The video became viral on social networking websites amid mass outrage.
However, legal experts said that instead of booking the erring cops under assault and criminal charges, police launched investigation on the basis of a controversial law (Section 66A of the Information Technology Act) that is already under fire for its misuse.
Prominent lawyer and human rights activist Parvez Imroz, while condemning the police said the video is a “glaring testimony of state-wide torture that is being perpetuated upon half a million Kashmiris.”
“When the same kind of torture was carried out by US forces in the infamous Abu Ghairab prison, there was an investigation against the accused and they were punished. But here instead of registering an assault charges against the erring cops, they have started an investigation against the whistle-blower who has dared to expose the video,” Imroz told Kashmir Reader.
“They have invoked Section 66A which essentially books the individual who has uploaded the video in the first place, thereby giving cover to those who are involved in this brutal act.”
Echoing similar views, J&K High Court lawyer Mudasir Naqashbandi said that Instead of filing a case to find who uploaded this video on YouTube, “police should have booked the cops who are involved in this barbaric act under charges of grievous hurt, wrongful confinement and attempt to murder.”
“The Section 66A of the IT Act has no immediate standing in this case because the video clearly shows that cops are involved in this ghastly act. The State Human Right commission (SHRC) should take suo-moto cognizance of this barbaric act committed by cops,” Naqashbandi told Kashmir Reader.
Section 66A of the IT Act reads: “Any person who sends by any means of a computer resource any information that is grossly offensive or has a menacing character; or any information which he knows to be false, but for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and with fine.”
Section 66A was recently in the eye of the storm after it was used by the authorities in Bombay to arrest two young girls. The duo—Shaheen Dhanda, 21, and Renu Srinivasan—who had questioned the Bombay shutdown to mourn the death of Hindu extremist leader and Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray on November 17, 2012, were booked under the Act. The case was withdrawn following public outrage.
Although senior police officials are tight-lipped on the video, a police spokesmen, said that they have not used Section 66A to book the person who has uploaded the video on the YouTube and that it is only a starting point for the investigation.
“The Act involves investigating individuals who have committed crimes relating to Information and Technology with a criminal intent, and let us not jump to conclusions here. This investigation under Section 66A will then subsequently lead us to those cops who were seen thrashing the two youth on the video,” police spokesman Manoj Pandita told Kashmir Reader.
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