NEW DELHI: Amnesty International's annual report on the state of the world's human rights said that perpetrators of human rights violations in India continued to enjoy impunity, particularly in Gujarat. It said that survivors of targeted killings and sexual violence in Gujarat in 2002 continued to be denied justice and reparation and key cases relating to these killings and sexual assault of Muslim women in which complainants had sought transfers to courts outside the state were pending before the Supreme Court at the end of the year.

Releasing the report at a press conference here on Tuesday, Praful Bidwai, senior journalist, said that India had come out looking extremely fragile so far as the human rights situation was concerned. "Rampant human rights abuses in Jammu and Kashmir, the use of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, and killing of civilians by armed forces and non-state actors continues," he said. Referring to the process of prosecution of those responsible for the anti-Sikh riots in 1984, Mr Bidwai said that 22 years after the violence, a vast majority of the violators remained at large.

Speaking at the release of the report, Usha Ramanathan, legal researcher, said the amendment of the criminal law resulted in the state being vested with extraordinary powers in the name of fighting terror.

"The number of custodial deaths is increasing every year. It is significant that in the Indian Penal Code torture per se is not punishable," she said.

The report noted that though the government had repealed security legislation that had been used to facilitate grave human rights violations, some of these provisions were transferred into existing laws.

It said that at least 38 persons were reported to have died in custody in Jammu and Kashmir, and that several people had been held under preventive detention under the Public Safety Act for over ten years, through repeated detention orders.

The report said socially and economically disadvantaged groups including Dalits, adivasis, and women continued to face systemic discrimination. "Adivasi communities in several states continued to face great pressure from dam and mining development projects, expansion of modern forms of agriculture and settlements', it said.

It pointed out that twenty-one years after the Union Carbide Corporation's pesticide plant in Bhopal leaked toxic gases that took a heavy toll on lives and the environment, survivors continued to struggle for adequate compensation, medical help and rehabilitation.

Global situation

On the global situation, Secretary-General of Amnesty Irene Khan, in a statement issued on Tuesday, said that the security agenda of the powerful and privileged had hijacked the attention of the world from human rights crises elsewhere.

"Governments collectively and individually paralysed international institutions and squandered public resources in pursuit of narrow security interests," she said.

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