{"id":310872,"date":"2019-03-28T11:39:30","date_gmt":"2019-03-28T11:39:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=310872"},"modified":"2019-03-28T11:39:30","modified_gmt":"2019-03-28T11:39:30","slug":"european-parliament-member-write-to-pm-modi-seek-ban-on-use-of-pellet-guns-in-kashmir-revocation-of-afspa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/european-parliament-member-write-to-pm-modi-seek-ban-on-use-of-pellet-guns-in-kashmir-revocation-of-afspa\/","title":{"rendered":"European Parliament member write to PM Modi, seek ban on use of pellet guns in Kashmir, revocation of AFSPA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-310874 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/pellet-rifle-300x224.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"564\" height=\"421\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2019\/03\/pellet-rifle-300x224.jpg 300w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2019\/03\/pellet-rifle-80x60.jpg 80w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2019\/03\/pellet-rifle-265x198.jpg 265w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2019\/03\/pellet-rifle.jpg 455w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 564px) 100vw, 564px\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Fifty members of the European parliament have written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and sought revocation of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act\u00a0 AFSPA and ban on the use of pellet guns in Kashmir.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">\u201cWe particularly note the tragic case of 19-month old child who was gravely injured by a pellet gun (BBC report). We are concerned that The Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act 1990 (AFSPA) and the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act 1978 (PSA) give security forces virtual immunity against prosecution for any human rights violation,\u201d the members wrote in the letter dated March 25 adding they were writing in their\u00a0 capacity as elected Members of the European Parliament.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">&#8220;Therefore, we, the undersigned MEPs, urge the Indian government to immediately end the use of pellet-firing shotguns in Jammu and Kashmir and bring all relevant Indian laws into compliance with international human rights standards\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The members asked the Indian government to establish independent and impartial investigations into all \u201caccidents where the use of pellet-firing shotguns led to deaths or serious injuries.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">\u201cWe, the undersigned, are writing to you to express our grave concern about the past and ongoing human rights violations against people in Kashmir, as reported in a recent OHCHR1 report,\u201d the letter read.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fifty members of the European parliament have written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and sought revocation of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act\u00a0 AFSPA and ban on the use of pellet guns in Kashmir. \u201cWe particularly note the tragic case of 19-month old child who was gravely injured by a pellet gun (BBC report). We [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":310874,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2016,2009,2014],"tags":[4146,1141,316],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310872"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310872"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":310875,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310872\/revisions\/310875"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/310874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}