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Srinagar, September 07, 2013 (PPI-OT): In occupied Kashmir, legal experts have termed the continued detention of Hurriyet leader, Dr Muhammad Qasim Fakhtoo, for over 20 years as cruel, unusual and against the International Conventions. Senior lawyer, Syed Tassaduq Hussain pointing out that human rights legislations and conventions could not be skipped in Dr Fakhtoo’s case said that India was a signatory to the declaration of human rights and myriad conventions adopted by the UN General Assembly and according to the precepts laid down by the Indian Supreme Court; the international conventions were to be read into domestic law.
“I have examined six judgments of US Supreme Court that have condemned any cruel and unusual punishment. In my view as a student of constitutional law, there is no gainsaying that any incarceration beyond 20 years is cruel and unusual,” Tasadduq said.
“This obligates the International Commission of Jurists to take up this matter with various agencies of United Nation for mobilizing a campaign for abrogation of such cruel punishments that are being inflicted by the Criminal Courts in Jammu and Kashmir,” he said.
Dr Qasim was first detained in 1993 under Public Safety Act. After six years of imprisonment, a TADA court acquitted him of all the charges, but police arrested him again at the New Delhi airport in 2002 when he was returning from London where he had participated in a conference on Kashmir. In 2003, he was sentenced to life imprisonment on false charges.
After Dr Qasim challenged his detention, the court directed the puppet administration to review his case, and on 3rd June, 2008, the administration constituted a Review Board comprising the then DGP Prisons and Principal District and Sessions Judge Srinagar to consider Qasim’s release under the provision of Jammu and Kashmir Jail Manual 2000. The Board had recommended the puppet regime the release of Dr Qasim.
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