The Legal Interpretation of Laws Imposed in Indian Occupied Kashmir

Abstract

The government of India has imposed repressive laws, such as the Armed Forces Special Powers
Act (AFSPA) and the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act (PSA) in Indian Occupied Kashmir (IOK)
since late 1980s. Under these laws, the security forces enjoy absolute powers to take any decision
against the people of IOK. The lives of locals have been made very tense by the Indian security
forces who can arrest people of any age and without warrants, gun down on the basis of suspicion,
misbehave with women during the search operation, and use pellet guns against the peaceful
protestors. The victims cannot approach the Indian legal system for justice in several cases because
these laws do not give them permission. These laws are also the major cause of social, political, and
economic deprivation and have no any relevance with major binding international human rights
documents. In this article, an effort has been made to interpret these two laws in the light of
different major international human rights declarations which are binding on all states of the world.