OCCUPIED SRINAGAR: The High Court Bar Association (HCBA) on Thursday termed the Indian Attorney General’s statement, defending army for tying a youth to bonnet of a jeep, as unjustified and asked him to advise Indian government to protect and not violate human rights in the territory.

The HCBA in a statement issued in Srinagar said, “In terms of Article 5 of Universal Declaration on Human Rights, 1948, no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and that in terms of Article 6 of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966, every human being has the inherent right to life and this right shall be protected by law and no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.”

In terms of Geneva Convention, it said that India was bound to enact a legislation to provide effective panel sanctions for persons committing or ordering to be committed, any of the gravest breaches of the Convention, which include, willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment including biological experiments, willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, carried out unlawfully and wantonly.

“Backing the culprit army man and saying that the officer did a smart thing by tying a Kashmiri to the army jeep, was absolutely unjustified,” it said, adding that the Attorney General of India as the Chief Advisor of the government was supposed to advise it to protect the human rights of the people and not to violate them in any manner irrespective of their cast, creed, colour and religion.

The HCBA also condemned the statement of BJP leader, Subramaniam Swami, who suggested that the troubled Kashmir should be depopulated and the Kashmiris, and should be sent to refugee camps in Tamil Nadu to curb the protests.—NNI