1,514 FIRs against Army personnel in J&K, 97% cases false

JAMMU: Over 100 Armymen including 48 officers have faced punitive action in cases related to human right violations in Jammu and Kashmir over the last two decades, Army said on Wednesday. "As many as 1,514 FIRs have been registered against Army personnel for alleged human rights violations in the last 20 years of militancy", Brigadier General Staff (BGS), Northern Command, Sanjay Verma said. He said that out of these 1,508 cases have been investigated whileprobe is continuing in the remaining six cases. "As many as 1,473complaints - nearly 97 per cent of the cases-- were found false and baseless,"Verma said. However, 35 cases (2.3 per cent of total cases) werefound true, he said, adding that 104 Armymen including 48 officers have beenpunished for human rights violations in J&K. "Our accountabilityis very strong. Our investigation and punishment in cases related to allegedhuman rights violations is very fast," the brigadier said, underscoring thatthere "is no room for mistakes. Army has alway maintainedzero-tolerance to human rights violations," he said. Army officials maintained that they were following certain strict edicts, including presence of police representative during operations and immediate handing over of detainees to police, while conducting counter-terrorism operations under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). Army ensures that a policerepresentative is present as part of the operational team though an exceptioncould be made in remote areas where the strength of the police force may not besufficient to be deployed in more than one operation going on simultaneously,they said. All operations are conducted as joint operations with thepolice, they said adding that recoveries made, detainees and bodies of thosekilled are immediately handed over to the local police. "Nounilateral arrests or searches are made. All actions are based on hardactionable intelligence," they said, adding that Army has discontinued crowdcontrol measures and has left the task to the state police. "Nowomen are searched until women police personnel are present during theoperation," they said.