The girls having nobody to fall back upon continue to suffer. They are living from hand to mouth. The
villagers have failed to rise to the occasion. In fact the conservative
villagers only add to their woes. Working women are treated as lepers
in the village. What shall the poor family do? And, what should be the
role of the government in such cases? An innocent person
is arrested without reason and subjected to enforced disappearance. The
government instead of helping the aggrieved family by furnishing the
whereabouts of the disappeared person makes it search for him in jails
situated in alien lands. When the family exhausts its
resources in the futile search, it is told to file an application under
SRO-43. When the kith and kin of the disappeared file the application
(though reluctantly) the authorities demand an affidavit wherein the
family is required to state that their disappeared relative got killed
in an exchange of fire between the militants and the soldiers. Even
after fulfilling this arbitrary condition their applications are not
considered. The indifference and inaction of the officials kills the
very object of the SRO. The officials perhaps do not know
that by invoking the SRO they are not doing any favour to the victim’s
family. It is the right of an aggrieved family. The SRO, in fact gives
an opportunity to the state to rectify a wrong committed by its
security agencies in the garb of fighting militancy. The relief under
this SRO does not deprive a family of its right to seek justice. It is
a sort of interim relief and has to be paid necessarily. It is an
admission on the part of the government that a wrong has been committed
and that the government is committed to rectify it by providing
compensation and compassionate employment to one of the members of the
aggrieved family. When the government decides to detain
a person under preventive detention legislation, it has to perform some
constitutional duties. Besides catering to the genuine needs of the
detainee, his family has to be provided a suitable pension. But
the reverse has been happening in this neglected land. By arresting the
lone bread earner of a family, the state makes his kith and kin beg for
the basic needs of life. The above mentioned case is not
the only case of its kind. Thousands of families have been passing
through similar circumstances. Whose responsibility is this? There is
no denying the fact that the society has to play a vital role to help
such miserable people but why should the government shy away from its
duties? The way government has been ignoring the sufferers does not go well with its much hyped policy of rehabilitation. The
failure of the government on this front is conveying wrong signals. The
government, it seems, has not understood the very meaning of
rehabilitation. The hapless girls have apprised the Chief
Minister of their miserable plight through a letter. The Chief Minister
has not responded till date. The letter must be gathering dust in the
office of the Chief Minister if at all it reached him. Yes, he cannot
administer justice for obvious reasons but he can take measures to
bring some respite to the devastated family by paying adequate
compensation.
http://www.etalaat.net/english/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1005:rehabilitate-them&catid=47:editorial&Itemid=71
Kashmir - Rehabilitate them | Kashmir |
More
than a year has passed since the daughters of a disappeared person from
a North Kashmir village apprised the Chief Minister of their miseries. The Chief Minister has not responded to their letter till date.
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