JUDICIARY and terrorism are two different terms with different scopes, as the former relates to justice and later symbolizes criminal activities and threat per-ception. But when the term is used together, it signi-fies something different, beyond the rule book.
Ju-diciary has created a new scene in the promotion of terrorism as its main and chief role is to provide justice but in Kashmir, the situation is something else as for as Judiciary is concerned.
Not entertain-ing the cases as they deserve to get entertained, prolonging the justice or even giving more opportu-nities to government-sponsored criminals has changed its maxim.
Below is a brief introduction of both terms and then little information of some epi-sodes which reveal how the Judiciary has created its terror and how judicial injustice is being witnessed in Kashmir Valley.
The judiciary is the chief organ that protects and safeguards the rights and duties of all and sundry and above it, it makes everyone accountable for their duties. The courts play a backbone role in promoting and implementing the rule of law.
But for the better implementation of rule of law, courts must be independent in nature. In other words, there must be independence from the Judiciary.
It should work for protection not pretending to be protection. No other institution or gang of people should direct or control the judicial setup.
Article 10 of the Univer-sal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and Arti-cle 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights has fully articulated the compe-tence, independence and impartiality of tribunal mechanism.
There must be an independent, impar-tial, competent and above all honest Judiciary to uphold the rule of law.
Terrorism is varied of its nature. It is changeable as a different school of thought proclaims different structures of terrorism.
But worst terrorism is state-sponsored terrorism. State through different agen-cies creates terrorism among masses as having had been witnessing in different parts of the world.
People are forced to go for criminal activities by creat-ing such an environment and then captivating them and pushing them behind bars can be witnessed globally.
Though terrorism is commonly understood to refer to acts of violence that hamper the rights of others to achieve political and ideological aims.
The Security Council, in its Resolution 1566 (2004), referred to terrorism to “Criminal acts, including against civilians committed with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury, or taking of hostages with the purpose to provoke a state of terror in the general public or in a group of persons or particular persons, intimidate a population or compel a gov-ernment or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act.”
The state can sponsor its aims and objectives through different institutions to achieve its short-term and long-term goals particularly when the course of action is to be dealt with in Kashmir Val-ley.
One amongst state-sponsored institutions is the Judiciary or judicial setup of Kashmir which has created its terror. Judicial terrorism has created panic in the general public in Kashmir.
The belief they used to have on Judiciary has vanished from the scene as the judiciary has forced people to keep their mouths shut and not allowed them to raise voices even in a polite manner. There are a number of cases that reveal judicial terrorism in Kashmir.
People who became victims of state-sponsored ter-rorism in the valley have revealed their plight as how judicial setup has given free hand to men in uniform to deteriorate the life of people even not found guilty in false cases.
They don’t even dare to ask the question of why they were presented to face the course of trials.
Suing is a distant dream here as people celebrate getting freedom from court cases although they knew the fact that they had been in-nocent from the beginning.
Judicial terrorism is galloping in nature through different tactics to make complete the suppression of oppressed people in the Kashmir Valley.
Below mentioned cases are linger-ing for more than a decade to get justice as the judi-ciary seems to be a dependent organ that works in the direction of big wigs and state-sponsored gangs.
On June 11, 2010, Tufail Matto, a student, was returning home from tuition when he was hit by a shell fired by a policeman near Gani Memorial Col-lege in Shaher-e-Khaas, killing him on the spot.
Later, Tufail’s family approached the court which directed the police to register the case and carry out an investigation, reported by Greater Kashmir. —KMS
