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Summary A UN expert urged India to repeal a law that gives its military sweeping powers to act in Kashmir.
Christof Heyns, the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions told reporters in New Delhi that the Armed Forces Special Powers Act allows the state to override rights and has no role in a democracy.Under the law, troops have the right to shoot anyone suspected of being a rebel and to arrest suspected militants without a warrant.This law has been described to me as hated, and a member of a state human rights commission has called it draconian, said Heyns, who traveled through Kashmir and the states of Gujarat, Kerala, Assam and West Bengal for two weeks.There was no immediate comment from the Indian government.The special powers law has been in force in different parts of the country since 1958 and is currently enforced in Indian-controlled Kashmir and in the states of Manipur and Nagaland in the northeast, all battling separatist movements.In all three regions, human rights workers have accused Indian troops of illegally detaining, torturing and killing rebel suspects, sometimes even staging gunbattles as pretexts to kill.
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