This refers to human rights scenario. The powers trample the written rules and ruthlessly impose their own version of unwritten ones on their 'subjects'. Does it suit the world's largest democracy to put under surveillance the human rights defenders and peace activists? Though history is replete with cases where any concern for human rights has been thrown to winds, the recent ones of sedition charges against noted author and activist Arundhati Roy and the detention of peace activist Gautam Naulakha took one and all aback. While the former was persuaded for speaking her heart out on Kashmir, the latter along with his associate was not let in at the Srinagar airport. It is a colossal insult to human rights and humanity, that too at a time when Kashmir is witnessing an appreciable tourist flow after three consecutive summer unrests. Such acts are going to hurt the cause of thousands of Kashmiri people associated with tourism industry. And things don't stop here. The detention per se is criminal and undemocratic. If Gautam Naulakha was a “threat to peace and security in Kashmir” on the eve of 'Shopian double rape and murder', why in the first place was he allowed to fly? Is it part of a design to send the false signal of everything being abnormal in Kashmir so that tourists keep away and Kashmiris are robbed off whatever little is left for them as a source of livelihood? These things strike at the very roots of a 'for the people, of the people' governing system. People don't get alienated overnight. It's the irrational measures like these which remain etched in their memory and which could prove potentially explosive.

Sheikh Anjum Husain
Sofipora, Pahalgam
anjum.valley@gmail.com

Lastupdate on : Mon, 30 May 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Mon, 30 May 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Tue, 31 May 2011 00:00:00 IST