KL Report
SRINAGAR
Eminent lawyer, researcher, human rights and women’s rights activist Vrinda Grover Saturday said that the State actors responsible for the enforced disappearances and extra-judicial killings of innocent people in Kashmir are still free because no section relating to the crime is present in Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Ranbir Penal Code (RPC).
During her speech at Aligarh Muslim University in New Delhi at a seminar organized by I.G.Memorial Trust in memory of a top cop I.G.Khan who was murdered in 2003 and whose killers are still roaming free, Grover said that justice eludes to millions of affected people in India. She said that families of disappeared persons in Kashmir come frequently on roads to seek justice from the government but till date justice eludes them.
Vrinda Grover said that even government of Jammu and Kashmir had admitted that enforced disappearances and extra-judicial killings have occurred in Kashmir Valley, but still the families did not get justice. “For the crimes like enforced disappearances and extra-judicial killings, no provision is present in IPC and RPC. The non-availability of such provision in penal codes is the biggest hurdle and continuous sources of frustration for the people who register cases in police stations about the enforced disappearances and extra-judicial killings. Police simply registers a missing case as a result culprits did not feel the brunt of law,” she said.
She said that there is an urgent need to amend penal codes to ensure speedy justice to the families of disappeared persons in Kashmir. “You can’t bring a culprit to justice by registering an ordinary missing case. You have to act as per the nature of the crime and not as per the provisions mentioned in the IPC or RPC,” Vrinda Grover said.
