AI expresses concern over re-arrest of Murtaza

Srinagar: International human rights watchdog, Amnesty International (AI) has expressed concern over the re-arrest of a teenage boy, Murtaza Manzoor, by Jammu and Kashmir police immediately after being released from administrative detention on 18 May last.Demanding his immediate release, AI has said the boy is at risk of “a repeat administrative detention order. “In a statement, the watchdog said Murtaza Manzoor was arrested on 21 January last by police in Srinagar, and he was held in administrative detention under the Public Safety Act (PSA) from 8 February till 18 May.“On 13 May the High Court of Jammu and Kashmir found the detention unlawful and ordered his release. On 18 May, instead of being released to his father who was waiting outside the Kot Bhalwal Jail, Murtaza Manzoor was escorted from the prison by four policemen of a specialist counter-insurgency team and taken to the Joint Interrogation Centre at Jammu,” the AI statement said.It added: “The police officials did not give his family any information on the alleged offences for which Murtaza Manzoor was being held– his detention may be without legal basis. The police officers however told his father that Murtaza Manzoor would be kept at the interrogation centre for a few days before being handed over to a police station in Srinagar. It is likely that a repeat administrative detention order will be passed to further hold Murtaza Manzoor under the PSA.”According to the AI, Murtaza is aged 17, but he is being treated as an adult as the laws of Jammu and Kashmir define boys above the age of 16 as adults, in contravention of Indian law and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.“The Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir has previously said that the state’s juvenile justice laws will be amended to make them consistent with international law and standards,” the AI said.AI has sought immediate release of Manzoor, unless he is charged with a recognizably criminal offence and remanded in custody by an independent court, having regard to his status as a child; and demanded that the State authorities not order the repeat administrative detention of Murtaza Manzoor. “If Murtaza Manzoor is to be held on charges of a recognizably criminal offence, he be afforded all fair trial guarantees set out in international law and specifically the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which stipulates also that any detention shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time; such detention should be in a separate facility for children, as close as possible to his family in order to facilitate family contact.”At least 322 people are reported to have been detained without trial under the provisions of the Public Safety Act in Jammu and Kashmir from January to September 2010 alone. A number of them, including children, have been detained on similar grounds of stone pelting and rioting during various protests against the Indian government throughout the summer of 2010.