J&K State Human Rights Commission Awards 10 lakhs Compensation To Man Used As Human Shield

Reprimanding the State and the Army for using a 26-year old weaver as a human shield earlier this year, the Jammu and Kashmir Human Rights Commission has ordered the State Government to pay him a compensation of Rs. 10 lakh.

Mr. Farooq Ahmad Dar was, on the orders of Major Leetul Gogoi of the 53 Rashtriya Rifles, chained to the bonnet of a military jeep, and made to travel in that condition through nine villages in Kashmir’s Budhgam District. The ruling was rendered on a case brought by Mohammad Ahsan Untoo, Chairman of the civil society organization, International Forum for Justice and Human Rights Jammu and Kashmir.

A Bench headed by Justice (Retd.) Bilal Nazki awarded the compensation for the “humiliation, physical and psychiatric torture, stress, wrongful restraint and confinement” that Mr. Dar had to undergo when he was used as a shield to ward off stone pelters.

The Commission relied on a Supreme Court judgment in the case of Prem Shankar Shukla v. Delhi Administration, wherein the Bench had observed, “…to bind a man hand-and-foot, fetter his limbs with hoops of steel, shuffle him along in the streets and stand him for hours in the courts is to torture him, defile his dignity, vulgarize society and foul the soul of our constitutional culture. Where then do we draw the humane line and how far do the rules err in print and praxis.”

Justice Nazki then opined that the treatment meted out to him has resulted in “psychiatric stress which may remain with him for the entire life”.

The Commission, however, stopped short of pronouncing any punishments against those responsible for the act, as the SHRC does not have jurisdiction over the army. Besides, the ruling is recommendatory in nature, and requires the State Government’s approval.