The mess in Kashmir, and the Government being ineffective in doing anything to counter it
The current mess in Kashmir offers no easy option for the Government in terms of how to handle the situation, and bring the overall situation to the peace that was there just a few months ago. After a long period of time, the Indian Government was feeling happy about the situation in Kashmir. Tourists were arriving in droves, the local economy was working fine, security incidents were minimum in terms of attacks by terrorists (and the casualties in terms of deaths in violent incidents as well as in cross-fire between the security forces and the terrorists was at a minimum). Further, in the overall situation, the tolerance for using terrorism as a method of furthering their goals had gone out of style, and as a result, support structure and media support for the terrorist movement in Kashmir had been drastically reduced, giving the Government a big plus. Also, local elections had been held and there was enough participation by the local electorate that a claim of electoral boycott could not be sustained.
And then, everything turned upside down. There seems to have been a new strategy in place to bring the status of Kashmir back to a boil, using the weapon a public protest. Public protests can be very difficult to handle, since you are no longer dealing with terrorists whom you can attack with the full force of security weapons, and without too many political issues. In this case, the Government is dealing with normal citizens, with young men, with women, and with many others. They pelt stones at the security forces, target individual policemen, try to burn and destroy Government institutions, and in a case of what one would think to be suicidal actions, they target the barracks and the posts of the security services. And as a result, even though the state Government has tried to restrain the security forces from harsh action, the direct attacks on the security forces have resulted in firing.
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Categories: Army, Congress, Disturbance, Emergency, J & K, Law, Police, Politics, Power Tags: Agitation, Armed Forces, Hurriyat, India, Insurrection, Kashmir, Omar Abdullah, Police, Political, Stone throwers
Armymen to be tried in civil courts for criminal offences
The military forces in India have almost a separate life with a separate code of honor and law; their life is much more controlled than the lives of ordinary civilians. As a result, they have a separate process for justice, with a separate legal system that governs them. This includes offences they commit that are normally treated as criminal offences for the normal citizens of the country such as rape, murder, theft, etc; instead, these were normally handled through the military process of court-martials where military designated justices handle these offences. This would make sense if the crime was committed at a military owned location, or at the border of the country. However, in the past, it was argued that if a soldier was on leave and then committed a crime, even this was under the jurisdiction of military justice. This was because even under casual leave, the soldier was still under the jurisdiction of the army. However, a judge of the Madras High Court has ruled that such offences can also be handled in the civilian court system (link to article):
Categories: Accountable, Army, Citizen, Court, Crime, Judges, Judiciary, Law, Military, Tamil Nadu Tags: Army, Crime, India, Judgment, Judicial, Law, Legal, Military
Pakistan finally takes on the Taliban
For months now, people in Pakistan and the world have wondered about the inaction of Pakistan in dealing with the Taliban. The Pakistani Taliban (hard to differentiate between the Afghan and the Pakistani Taleban since they both respect Mullah Omar as the supreme leader), already present in the hard regions of Pakistan that touch Afghanistan, suddenly in the last few months attacked a beautiful tourist valley called Swat (not very far from the capital) and started a campaign of attacks, hardline Islam, and general targeting of Government institutions such as schools, police stations, etc. The Government, far from fighting this force effectively, backed down and after a sort of retreat, signed a peace treaty in which they agreed to the terms of the Taleban, with the only condition being that the Taleban will not bear arms in Swat after the deal. However, this was a compromise comparable to the buckling down to Hitler in Munich, and had effectively the same effect.
The Taleban saw this buckling down of state authority as a show of its weakness in front of the Taleban (and maybe a sign that the state was having problems in getting the army to fight against an Islamic inspired force), and started expanding the campaign, thereby using the Swat valley as a base from which to overrun nearby districts. In their next target, they reached close to Islamabad, and the Government let loose a volley of talk at them, accusing the Taleban of violating the terms of the accord and hoping that the Taleban could be persuaded to back down. There was still no direct action that the militia understand.
