NEW DELHI, Feb 4 (1995) – India, bowing to international pressure, has agreed to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) access to detainees in jails and detention centres in the strife-torn northern state of Jammu and Kashmir, government sources said on Saturday.
“A decision has been taken in principle to give access to ICRC at the detention centres. The modalities are being worked out in consultation,” a top government official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters.
He said an agreement between the Indian government and the ICRC was expected to be signed shortly. He did not give details.
The Hindu newspaper said in a report on Satruday that an ICRC team would visit Jammu and Kashmir in March.
The ICRC had, after a visit to the state in March last year, submitted detailed proposals to the government seeking clearance for access to prisoners apart from providing medical relief.
India has been accused by the United States of major human rights abuses in Jammu and Kashmir, where a five-year-old armed conflict has killed more than 17,000 people.
A U.S. State Department report released in Washington this week blamed Indian security forces for major abuses in the disputed Himalayan region.
The document followed a report by Amnesty International that said torture by Indian security forces had become routine in the state. New Delhi has accused the organistion of basing the study on questionable sources and vested interests.
A Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Friday that India had nothing to be ashamed of its human rights record, which it described as “second to none”.
The Indian government recently set up the National Human Rights commission to monitor the human rights situation in the country.
The U.S. report also said Moslem secessionist militants in Kashmir were responsible for hundreds of murders and kidnappings.
The insurgents are fighting either for an independent Kashmir or to join Moslem Pakistan, which rules one-third of the Himalayan region and has fought two of its three wars with India over the region.
The Hindu report said the ICRC had told the government it would not compromise on the modalities of working in the state to ensure its neutrality and independence.
The international humanitarian organisation insists on having access to all detainees, interviews in private without the presence of security personnel, repeated access to detained persons and collection of data relating to individuals, the paper said.
The ICRC has said these modalities are not negotiable, the paper said.
