The Machil moment

So far,the army in Kashmir has been perceived to be insulating its personnel from civil criminal proceedings,and public faith in the court martial as a means to justice runs low. In the Machil encounter,widely believed to be a case of murder and abduction,the army invoked the Armed Forces Special Powers Act,even though it was evident that the killings had not taken place in the line of duty. The case was taken out of the trial court in Sopore and placed under the armys jurisdiction. Earlier cases have not set a heartening precedent. For instance,the investigation of the Pathribal encounter killings 2000 was caught in a tug of war between the CBI and the army for years,until the Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that the army could decide whether the case should be tried by regular criminal courts or through court martial proceedings. The army opted for the latter and the case has been put on the backburner. The BSF personnel tried by court martial for the Bijbehara massacre of 1993 were all acquitted. In numerous cases,the court martial has been seen as a way to short-circuit the due processes of law.

Over the years,cases against armed forces personnel have piled up. Most of these continue to languish. Gawkadal,Poonch,Konan Poshpora the names read like a litany of wrongs. With Machil,the army could change this tragic trend and set a new precedent.

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