Feb
28
Use of Civilian Human Shields in Firefights with Militants
February 28, 2004 | Comments Off on Use of Civilian Human Shields in Firefights with Militants
The latest edition of the weekly Tehelka carries an Op-Ed by Ashok Agrwaal (one of the co-authors of Reduced to Ashes and the plaintiffs’ lead counsel in the NHRC case), criticizing the use of innocent civilians as human shields during armed operations against militants:
From Nagaland to Punjab, Andhra Pradesh to Kashmir, from the early 1950s to February 2004, there have been reports of the security forces forcing local people to act as ‘human shields’ and participate in anti-terrorist operations.These reports have been denied by the authorities who routinely provide other reasons, “caught in the cross-fire”, “aiding/abetting terrorists”, etc, to explain civilian casualties. Recently, there was a similar incident in Bandipora in Kashmir which led to massive protests. As usual, the army denied allegations that the five villagers were killed while being forced to act as ‘human shields’. It claimed that they were killed in the cross-fire between the terrorists and the army.
In the absence of objective investigations, the truth about this incident may never be known. However, the following account from the recent past, tell us the ‘tangential tale’ of Bandipora.
The article (available to subscribers) goes on to detail how the army picked up several civilians on the street and used them as human shields in a firefight between militants and the army in village Kaw-chak, police station Kreeri, Tehsil Pattan, district Baramulla, Jammu and Kashmir, on March 5, 2003. Some excerpts:
The [army] trucks stopped near the shops. Two officers, one in sunglasses and another, jumped out. The ‘sunglass officer’ grabbed Mohiuddin and dragged him towards the trucks. They ordered Malik to come with them. The Mir brothers, who had by then reached where the army vehicles were parked, were ordered to get into the trucks. Ghulam Mohd Mir, a government employee, was let off when he pleaded that he had to report for duty.
Inside the truck there were four residents of village Watargam, picked up by the army. They were brought to the site of the encounter, in village Kaw-chak, in the truck.
At the encounter site they were pulled out, ordered to remove their upper garments and their backs were marked with a rubber stamp, presumably to fix their identity. They were divided into pairs. Each pair was given some explosives-like a car battery weighing about 15-20 kilos-and ordered to carry these into the house in which the militants were holed up and to place the devices against the walls inside the ground floor of the building. The militants were on the upper floors. …….
…. On seeing the identity card they realised that the bodies were of two villagers, both of whom had been forced into ‘army service’. The man with the purse was Abdul Rashid Mir, a teacher by profession and the man with the keys and the identity card was Ashiq Hussain Malik. The keys were of his shop. Half of Abdul Rashid’s face had been torn apart by a burst of bullets. Ashiq faced a burst of bullets on his back. …..
….. Ministers Ghulam Hasan Mir and Sharifuddin Niazi, and a corp commander (a Sikh) came for Taziat (mourning). A wounded major, also came. The commander expressed regret: “However,” he said, “the casualties cannot be helped. We cannot do our job effectively without civilian help.”
The online version of the Tehelka article also contains the account of the case of human shields used by the police, paramilitary forces and army in a firefight with militants in village Behla (District Amritsar), Punjab on June 8, 1992. Six civilians used as human shield by the security forces were killed, but explained away as terrorists killed in the encounter in the official version of the incident. Reduced to Ashes contains the details of this incident(based upon CCDP investigations) in CCDP case Summary #103 on Page 260 [PDF]. From the online version of the Tehelka article:
The next morning, the police told the press that they had killed nine militants in the action. In the aftermath, several newspapers published stories questioning the police claims and explaining how the six unconnected villagers had been pushed into the jaws of death. Two others, wounded in the course of the operation, had been abandoned by the police to their own resources to obtain medical help. Embarrassed by the publicity, the Punjab government later announced an inquiry, which was, however, never carried out.
The police cremated all the bodies at Tarn Taran on June 9, 1992, labeling them as “unidentified/unclaimed”, though the family of Ajit Singh attended the cremation. Other families were not allowed to attend.
Use of Civilian Human Shields in Firefights with Militants …
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