SRINAGAR: Upping their ante against Army, the ruling National Conference party on Monday warned them against committing atrocities on people by misusing the immunity provided by AFSPA.
“In the garb of AFSPA you cannot simply go on doing what you want” said NC Spokesman, Tanvir Sadiq.
Sadiq was referring to the incident of firing in Pulwama district on Friday in which at least seven ordinary civilians were wounded, many of them critically.
Police said the firing took place after an ambulance carrying an army officer wounded during a gunfight in a nearby village came under attack from stone pelters.
But local residents and the wounded said the firing was “unprovoked” and added that the soldiers also fired at a vehicle carrying the wounded civilians to hospital.
The incident has caused outrage in separatists and mainstream camps alike. The Hurriyat Conference has dismissed a magisterial probe by the government as an “eyewash”.
The NC spokesperson said his party demands the “harshest” punishment to those responsible.
“An institution that has brought laurels to the county should learn from their past mistakes…your one wrong move can bring the state back to boil,” Sadiq said.
The Pulwama town has been under curfew for the past four days as authorities feared violent protests.
In 2010, a mass uprising against New delhi saw at least 111 people, mostly young men and children, die in police and paramilitary firing. The agitation, Sadiq said, finds its cause in a fake encounter that took place in North Kashmir’s Machil area where a unit of the army had offered work to three men “but killed them in a staged gunbattle and projected them as militants”.
“The cases like the Machil and Pathribal resonate in the valley, the wounds of which are yet to be healed” said Sadiq adding “If you don’t learn from your past mistakes then we are sorry you are only making things worse for the people who have sacrificed a lot to restore peace in the valley.”
