NEW DELHI – Indian authorities in occupied Kashmir have detained 144minors, including a nine-year-old, since the government removed theregion´s special status in August, a police list seen by AFP showed Tuesday.
Sixty of the minors are under 15, according to the document submitted to acommittee appointed by India´s Supreme Court to look into allegations ofillegal detentions.
Reasons given by the police for detaining the minors include stone pelting,rioting and causing damage to public and private property, the committeesaid in its report.
Most have since been released, officials claimed.
The police however denied that any child was taken into “illegal detention”and said that the juveniles are “dealt strictly (with) as per theprescribed law”.
“It happens often that when minors/juveniles indulge in stone pelting, thatthey are momentarily held up on the spot and sent home. Some of theseincidents are exaggerated beyond proportion,” the report quoted the policeas saying.
New Delhi stripped Indian Occupied Kashmir of its autonomy on August 5,sending in tens of thousands of extra troops, cutting telecommunicationsand detaining thousands of people.
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Almost two months on, many of the region´s top politicians remain incustody and mobile phones and the internet remain largely snapped in theoccupied Kashmir Valley, the main trouble hotspot.
UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said last month she was “deeplyconcerned about the impact of recent actions by the government of India onthe human rights of Kashmiris”.
Last week Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan told the UN General Assemblythat India could unleash a “bloodbath” in the Muslim-majority territory.
An uprising against Indian rule and a tough Indian response has killed tensof thousands of people since 1989, most of them civilians. -APP/AFP