Wikileaks expose’: Omar refuses to go into torture in PDP era

Srinagar: As the alleged torment of detainees in Kashmir at the hands of Indian forces showed up in wikileaks, the Chief minister Omar Abdullah refused to comment into torture accusations during Peoples Democratic Party regime in 2005 while Mehbooba, the president of opposition PDP, had potshot at Nation Conference saying they inherited the government from the present ruling party.

As per Wikileaks expose’, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) provided US diplomats in 2005 with evidence of the systematic use of torture by forces in Kashmir.

As per the reports, published  in UK based Guardian Newspaper, the ICRC told the US diplomats of 177 visits it had made to detention centres in Kashmir that revealed “stable trend lines” of prisoner abuses.

In a confidential briefing, ICRC acquainted the diplomats about torture techniques included electric shock treatment, sexual and water torment and nearly 300 cases of “roller” abuse in which a round metal object is placed on the thighs of a sitting detainee and then sat on by guards to crush the muscles, the reports according to the cables released by the WikiLeaks website, said.

The ICRC, it said, had been “forced to conclude that the (Indian government) condones torture”.

Reacting to the leaks, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said that he was not going into the transcripts since they pertain to 2005.

“I am not getting into it as these transcripts belong to 2005 and you do your own math to know which government was in power that time,” Abdullah said in a direct reference to coalition government led by PDP then.

“As far as my government is concerned, we don’t condone torture. We never have and we never will,” Omar told reporters here, Press Bureau of India correspondent said. The Chief Minister said that his government was the first to allow a team of Amnesty International to travel to the state in the last 20 years.

Reacting to the leaks and subsequent reaction by Omar Abdullah, PDP president Mehbooba Mufti obliquely blamed the national conference. “We inherited the government from National Conference in 2002, the time when situation was bad…POTA was in force, Task Force was formed and surrendered militants were out. Even then we tried to improve the situation by healing touch,” Mehbooba told reporters here.

“Omar Abdullah shouldn’t comment on the issue the way he did and in fact, the regime should be last to comment as government has converted entire Kashmir into a prison in last several months 111 civilians were killed, thousands of youth detained and many them rendered paralyzed,” she said.