Communications blackout imposed my guest this week here in london is a National Vice president and one of the chief spokesman of the ruling b. J. Thing obviously also the charges of widespread Human Rights Violations in kashmir that are reported to be continuing to this day. She found the welcome to come to thank you a month before your government imposed a lockdown in kashmir the uns chief human rights official issued a report examining the state of human rights in the region between may 20 1008. 00 call this year it claimed that in that 12 month period the number of civilian casualties around 160. 00 with thought to be in the highest in more than a decade and it says 71 of them have been picked. Of indias Security Forces the un says you have a poor record of investigating such killings why is that 1st of all i think its wrong to call it a Lockdown People in Jammu And Kashmir are free to move around they visit other parts of india people from other parts are not your thousands of arrested. Let me tell you a country to do anything let me come to the detention part 99 percent of the area of human kashmir does not have any restraints now regarding the human rights issues there are 42000 people that have been killed in Jammu And Kashmir because of terrorists operating with the support of a country to our west and this doesnt get adequate attention and the people who are shot by Indian Forces by the way Indian Forces have not killed any civilians in the recent past the people who are carrying a k 47 the people who are carrying grenades are terrorists just a pound or 3 years ago and 20165 investigations were launched by your government to exchange judicial executions but to this day no information has been received why would that be the Indian Government takes very seriously any such allegations and while there may have been mistakes decades ago about 2016 yes but im talking about not just 2016 but if you just deal with this particular incident because 3 years on not only is there no verdict in any of these cases theres no way of knowing if the investigations are still going on or being part indefinitely in the platform is going to be part indefinitely 0 information has not been verdicts on other similar allegations and there will be verdicts in these cases as well when are you going to take over the judicial process has a way to go through and you cannot expect. Arbitrary decisions so why the silence why the complete silence about whether they investigation is still ongoing well i mean 0 information silence its hard not to see this is a blatant cover up why the silence by the media about the 42000 people that are being killed that have been killed why the side and i dont answer for them. Media well i mean you are the people i meet your part of the media and listen im sitting here questioning you and you have an opportunity to talk about and im trying to find im terrible point the point is you must see the larger picture and amps ive said very openly that wherever there are such allegations there have been verdicts in other cases and there will be verdicts based on justice the u. N. Report speaks of arbitrary detention and socalled cordon and Search Operations that have led to a range of Human Rights Violations and it says that accountability for violations committed by members of the indian Security Forces remains virtually non existant but its their words virtually nonexistent thats a shocking record as well 1st of all i disagree with that but this seems to be blindingly oblivious to the larger problem of terrorism that is emanating with support from across the border so i know you would like to widen the discussion out away from indias was its not a way a lot of the problem you know that has arisen do you have a tension that is given even what do you hold on it will be new here is not a problem 42000 people have been killed weve got a problem were talking about indias response im talking about and you want to you want to widen i mean the major block on accountability has been the Armed Forces Special powers that hasnt i think as i just prevented your Security Forces been prosecuted without government permission ok so i think thats a great question allow me to finish my answer the the Armed Forces Special provision act has been removed in the state of puerto it has been removed in the state of meghalaya it has been partially removed in the state of natural provision why because the situation the security situation has improved in general in kashmir we are facing an undeclared war from across the western border and this is not getting adequate attention you need to focus on that says the politicians who decide and have done for almost 30 years where the cases involving Security Forces in general kashmir can even be heard by the courts is a do as you please lower isnt it if you Armed Forces Get away with everything the world. Largest democracy this is not taken by individuals theres a parliament thats elected by an electorate of 900000000 people there are checks and balances in place i just answered that the aft bar has been removed in more than to see our forces special powers that yes they were the un special rapporteur action judicial killings christophe high and said in the past retaining such a law as this runs counter to the principles of democracy and human rights not when you have a war like situation and im telling you here that its being removed where the situation is normalizing and you must recognize little or german kashmir yes and india the situation is in transition it will get normalized look i think the wider situation that you dont want to talk about is important for your viewers to understand all of those things that you are responsible for how many times has the Central Government in the allow the prosecution of armed forces for alleged human rights abuses in civilian courts over the last 30 years 3 decades how many times as the government allowed a prosecution you know the armed forces have their own Court Martial process and that has that thats there in every democracy not just in india how many times have Armed Forces Personnel been prosecuted for alleged human rights for several times how many come in and i dont have a number. The fact is that according to her no single tonally was not one prosecution of Armed Forces Personnel was granted by sitting indian court in a civilian court so in the world is meant to believe that without exception over 3 decades every Single Member of the Security Forces behaved like angels no i think you are being blindingly oblivious or deliberately trying to obfuscate that the Armed Forces Special provision act is in in force in Jammu And Kashmir and that is because of a war like situation which is why military courts deal with such allegations and you must recognise this is the 3rd time i am pointing out that this is not something that is unilaterally decided by an individual or by an unaccountable government and it has been removed in states where the situation has improved it will in future be removed in Jammu And Kashmir what about the use of metal pellets in german kashmir in this last report the un spoke of alarming numbers of deaths and life changing injuries caused by your Security Forces use of shotguns firing metal pellets children have been among the victims the stone throwers that you have been referring to have in the past used to be many decades ago responded with riot responses involving bullets so that was scaled down to go down to pellets which is far less deadly rather than use guns and among the stone throwers you cant a 19 month old girl who was shot in her right eye no cause in 1900 been a good target forces you know thats a very unfair thing to say you must also refer to all those videos of Indian Forces behaving with great forbearance against enormous attacks deadly attacks with stones and bottles and these are organized riots these are funded by terrorist organizations recognized by the United Nations you must also shed light on them according to the main hospital in kashmir that treats such injuries because sri maharajah had the same hospital. 1233 people have been blinded by metal pilots filed by you Security Services just in 2 and a half year period from mid twentys 16 up until the end of last year 1253 people now sightless now steps have been taken to further reduce the kind of measures being taken to control such attacks what disability for solutions what it means is where as earlier thousands of people used to be at risk because of firing of real bullets it came down to using pellets and today even that is used only in the rarest of rare circumstances Government Data from 2017 showed the weapon killed 13 people and injured more than 6000 in 8 months alone nearly 800 people sustained injuries knowing those risks and the statistics inescapable conclusion is that your forces intended to cause those injuries to know our forces intended to maintain peace and law and order and you know you cant keep. Focusing only on specific casualties without looking at the war like situation that we are facing and it is important to recognize that the Current Situation that has developed in kashmir since august is that an article which was the only article called temporary in our constitution has been diluted and this is creating a lot of misguided communications internationally whereas article 370 provided shelter to all kinds of horrible things it did not allow 106 indian laws passed by parliament and the Supreme Court rulings to apply in kashmir including your rights including womens rights including a minority going slightly of the subjects. Its amazing to me i talk about 12 and 53 people who cyclists and you talk about. Somewhere else in here dont consider them as if you do not own im not you dont you know where im right ok but do you not care about these 2 of those really 3 people do you not. Care about the 42000 people that have been killed so why are there no apologies why then no apologies for these blind it is right you know we dress a little more it is regrettable when any such injury takes place but this is actually a scaling down of the kind of vinyl my wrists in the courts why no apologies there will be there will be when there will be action in the courts no proper compensation for these people of course there will be compensation really anybody is yes of course there will be lets talk about what happened in august. Whatever the reasons for the indians action crease curity threats smuggling etc better uses of resources it became an excuse for a large number of arrests and detentions that continue to this day on what grounds were some 4000 people deprived of their liberty in fact we need to continue to this day there have been releases taking place you know 1000 people its important to understand something that this is an unfinished part of the Indian Independence struggle and partition because when partition happened imposed by the british it happened with a certain set of circumstances and similar restraints were put into place in the punjab introduced done in good rock the point is when these restrictions were put also in places like bengal and a sump it was because tens of thousands of people were killed in the partition violence now right now these restaurants have been put into place because we had a choice of either having temporary restraints or permanent loss of lives you havent told me what these people had done 4000 people in general in kashmir of the. Changes if you like in the status of kashmir why 4000 people were detained you havent told me why i dont know that it is 4000 but i will tell you that if the same detentions had happened in 104748 which we believe should have happened then we would have been integrated to india now so you dont you dont know why these people know i do know why these people many of them have gone. On the record questioning the constitution of india questioning the larger question is will they are allowed to question but theyre not allowed to take arms they are not allowed to smuggle arms and drugs theyre not allowed to indulge in Money Laundering to fund the likes of. And the likes of jascha in muhammad which are operating from pakistan and sending in jihad which had been to kill in india. A month after the operation the Supreme Court had to step in and tell your government to get on with restoring normal life as soon as possible with one of the judges sherrod of and bob calling the situation a terrible state of affairs so in the words of one of your own Supreme Court judges created a terrible state and youre not telling the full story here so the Supreme Court is indeed hearing petitions regarding german kashmir but already restrictions had been removed gradually from after the 1st 24 hours what the judge said is that they should continue and the judge did not grant relief to the people who wanted these detentions to be taken away right away because of the security situation so yes indeed this restraint must be removed they are being removed and it is a process a court even had to order the authorities to transfer the sick leader of the communist party to hospital in delhi because nobody was allowed to go in or out of his house close so they had to order basic humanitarian protection or through that misrepresentation some people trying to misrepresent this because he was allowed to to be shifted to hospital there was a delay because of certain technicalities why is the among those who held why is the former chief minister farouk now his for a couple an hour in his eightys being also detained what kind of threat does he represent to the government of india is that with due respect to mr abdullah with whom i have also served in parliament he did go around making very incendiary statements when article 370 was diluted now we have had a situation where people. Have. On the surface pledged allegiance to the Indian Constitution but have straddled the ground which flirts with separatists which flirts with terrorists who are operating from across the border and a lot of these separatists their own children arent they dont have any skin in the game they all live abroad here in the u. K. And in the us its. Really also rested his daughter sister who was simply holding up placards in the street you know why they were released the point is this 99 percent of the area of Jammu And Kashmir today has no restraints and this has gradually been eased over the past 10 or 11 weeks now at a certain point when more areas had certain restraints yes Public Events were prohibited because of the law and order issue amnesty internationals reports that the lawyers and family members of the detainees are not informed of the grounds of the rest of the even the whereabouts of their clients and relatives how can that be right to chrissy. When you have a war like situation the law that has been in place there allows for a certain period of detention now talking about the Public Safety act most of the prominent leaders are not kept in jail they are kept in guest houses with security measures. As i keep repeating something we had a choice the indian state had a choice between temporary restraints and permanent loss of lives and you must recognize its only fair to point out that in these last 11 weeks a large number of these restraints have been actually removed lawyers and family members are not informed of the grounds of the rest knew even the whereabouts of the relatives i come back to that question they will always that i was that allowed to look or see that that is allowed by the Public Safety act passed by the former state of Jammu And Kashmir for a certain period its not indefinite its for a limited period but its important to point out that the other restraints that you have referred to for example initially phone lines were not allowed to day not only or landlines but all postpaid cell phone lines are already functional. So as of yesterday group of you members of parliament are visiting your mood privately saying for themselves thats ok most members of parliament in delhi have not been most members of parliament when they travel to other countries and ive personally led many such delegations do indeed travel privately and not as official representatives of their legislatures. Mr pound b. G. P. Doesnt like criticism one of one of your rising political star just we saw here captured the mood of the party in the recent election when he produced a video proclaimed if you are with modi you are with india and if you are not with modi you are anti india do you buy into that you know the reality is mr modi is extremely popular and i think you would find of poll after poll like people surveys have pointed out that nearly 3 fourths of the indian population is with mr modi so hes technically correct 40 percent of the population today im sorry 40 percent of the vote in the recent election thats because of our reporting system of the parliamentary system which we have inherited from this country if we had a president ial election things might be quite different which by the way whether you approve of that slogan i said hes technically correct that the you know the people surveys show that 3 fourths of the people of india are with mr modi so hes right but i want not if i am not willing anti india is that is that you position your anti india if you are not with modi no its possible for a Different Party or l. T. And let me point out its of course possible to be against mr modi and still not be anti india but sadly many people in the opposition have taken a stance or made comments which are being used by terrorist organizations which are being used by the government of pakistan which is indeed anti india so if those people self identify as being both against mr modi and also anti india then thats their own choice its not just pakistan terrorists who are criticizing the position of your government is it your your ruling party is said to have instilled a climate of fear something of which the world renowned and respected in the an academic m r t a sense highlighted recently an interview he said people were scared of your government ive never seen this before he added when someone says something critical of the government on the phone with me they said. I better talk about it when i see you because im sure theyre listening to this conversation thats not a way to run a democracy he says its also not a way of understanding what the majority wants so always he admittedly in the end though why dont i answer that with due respect to professor mature sen he has an unstinted record of making some statements against the b. G. P. And against Prime Minister modi i think a better alternative to look at would be the latest indian economics Nobel Laureate which is a banner g. Who has a balanced track record of both criticising some of the steps taken by our government as well as supporting some of the deep seated reforms that the more the government is embarking on but there are plenty of examples where youve been squeezing the space for free speech up and you know thats not true really thats not true because we hear this week after week when people claim that their right to free speech is being squeezed and where do we hear this we hear this in Television Debates we hear this in newspaper columns and we hear this online statement we hear this in public protests in india thats what i dont hear if you think Freedom House is the latest report which says that despite a vibrant media indian journalists risk harrison and Death Threats and physical violence in connection with their work such attacks are rarely published and some take place with the complicity or active participation of police. I think it is shameful whenever any journalist is attacked indeed there have been some attacks and maybe there are people complicit at the lower level but prosecutions do happen to happen and i can you know i can tell you very comprehensively it is not the indian state it is not the Indian Government and it is not the b. G. P. Which condones this what is telling is the latest annual crime report which is more than a year late leaves out some rather important cat. Like attacks on journalists nothing about Human Rights Violations by Security Forces or attacks by vigilantes when asked about these gaps your Home Affairs Ministry said the data for these categories had been withheld because it was unreliable and prone to mis interpretation thats pretty heavy handed censorship is and no it isnt censorship let me explain we have had a few cases of despicable vigilantism but somehow one section tries to portray it as if its only about protection its not weve unfortunately had with plenty of people who are suspected child abductors of people who are peeves and when. Mainstream Media Outlets try to portray all of them as only one kind of vigilantism it shows that they have an agenda and that needs to be desegregated so you dont put out the figures in case people might just draw the wrong not just from might that thats what thats what not just might this censorship allow people to make up their own minds so the commentator under an arcane and i think you would do well to look into the research that he has put up is that mainstream newspapers have tried to pass off as carville and ism all kinds of violence that has taken place and they try to portray only one kind of violence they dont portray another kind of violent the actively try to suppress it with an agenda so it i think for yourself 1st needs to know the truth needs to come out it does not serve anyones purpose to miscategorized one kind of violence is another kind mr pounder 6 years ago long before you joined the b j p complained criminalise edition of politics in india had become a sad reality you wrote then getting elected has become a convenient shield to delay the legal processes and escape conviction why has your party done nothing about the large number of indicted people sitting in parliament in fact its actually got worse. In fact my party has done a lot by the way so why the fuck is worse literally were when you wrote there arent words actually let me let me explain so this is not a new thing weve had the criminalization of indian politics going back to several decades into the late sixtys and early seventys Prime Minister modi has repeatedly called for fast track courts to expedite the trials of elected officials the right offer and you dont have them know the our judicial system requires you know its not just that government can push through these things so we need to shield reforms and that is something that not just i but many in our party led by the Prime Minister himself are campaigning for them it just correct what you said you said the figures world worse the association for democratic reform compared the numbers of indicted m. P. s elected to the lower house in the last 2 general elections and the increase has been spectacular 201434 percent of them face declared criminal cases by 29000 has it increased by almost 10 percent to 43 percent the proportion of those facing serious charges has also shot up from 21 to 29 percent so you obviously are not aware of the its not i am aware i think you are not aware of Something Else several m. P. s have been disqualified from parliament because of getting convicted this was the result of the campaign that many of us carried on now regarding those who have allegations against them you call them indictments we have our system is a little more complex its taken from the british for many decades ago the Election Commission has got tighter and tighter and forcing declarations earlier many of these facts were not being declared so i dont think there has been actually an increase of criminal m. P. s there has in fact been a decrease well thats your supposition but thats not does not mean also that it was not borne out are you not aware are you not are you not aware that the Election Commission has in fact imposed more. Guidelines for declarations of any charges being faced by people contesting elections so sounds like it should have done jaipur thank you very much for being a comfort. Place. To. Park what they are and. The more opposed to gets the better. The so called selfish generation is breaking taboos and taking part in a challenge for life. Only both love and love make it real much. Like me. Cold. D. W. Light can carry information. Light can help feed people. Still people can be happy without light. On how much light do we really neat. Weve seen the light on made in germany in 90 minutes on d w. In the un climate change. Proposed massive. Cuts cuts some stupid people cut one of the deals today have the future of. G. W. Dot com africa megacities the mechanisms click such are. The cream to todays bullshit. 97 enough a historical turning point in politics business analyst. Run up people of the islamic revolution. Opens up to making its initial flirtation with those strengths in states of emergency put things into chaos. John thomas against displacement and shams the people threaten steel told her. Mom want to close a bank of people its the start of an era that defines overmanaged today 979 of the big committed todays most States December 23rd double fund. Such. A. Claim. This is day double the news live from berlin. Russian diplomats. This was the victim a former Chechen Rebel commander gums down in broad daylight in the german part german prosecutors suspect kitchen state involvement russia will retaliate also coming up. Fresh ammunition for u. S. Democrats in their drive to impeach President Trump legal scholars tell us that trump committed impeachable offenses by pressuring the french president