Kashmir amends tough security law
Indian-ruled Kashmir has approved amendments to a tough law that allows detention of people without trial for two years and the arrest of youths as young as 16, an official said yesterday.
"The state cabinet has approved an ordinance to do away with some harsher clauses of the Public Safety Act (PSA)," a state government official said on condition of anonymity.
The amendments mean that no-one under 18 years of age will be detained under the act, he said.
In Kashmir, boys aged 16 and over are currently treated as adults and can be detained under the PSA.
The law allows police to detain a person for up to two years without charge or trial if he or she is deemed a threat to the state.
Rights group Amnesty International earlier this year demanded the scrapping of the PSA, which it said had been used to detain up to 20,000 people without trial in Kashmir since the eruption of an insurgency against Indian rule in 1989.
The amendments to the PSA also include a reduction in the detention period from the existing one year to three months in cases of public disorder and from two years to six months in cases involving security of the State.
However, in both the cases the detention period can be extended to one year and two years respectively, the official said.
Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah announced last week that other harsh laws imposed in 1990 allowing troops to act with near-impunity are to be partially withdrawn as security improves in the region.
The reviled Armed Forces Special Powers Act and Disturbed Areas Act were introduced to give the army and paramilitary forces -- who number 500,000 in Indian Kashmir today -- sweeping powers to detain people, use deadly force and destroy property.
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