Months after several minor boys were sent behind bars in connection witht the stone pelting incidents that took place during the unrest in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, J&K Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti government asserted that boys will not be sent to jail anymore.
As per reports, the government is coming up with a number of child welfare committees who will ensure that boys cannot be just picked up and locked inside the prison. Additionally, if the minor is found guilty of committing an offence he would be sent to a juvenile home like other states instead of a jail.
Last year, over 80 minor boys were arrested and put behind bars for allegedly indulging in stone pelting incidents that took place after Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani was shot dead in an encounter creating a massive uproar in the state. The government drew flak from several quarters in the way the security officials dealt with the situation.
Almost eight months after Burhan Wani was killed in an encounter causing massive unrest in Jammu and Kashmir, the students across the state are all set to return to the school that were shut due to the chaos in the valley.
It was earlier reported that a modified version of pellet guns are all set to make a comeback. Apparently, the alternative of pellet guns PAVA (pelargonic acid vanillylamide) shells have not been quite effective in managing protests and separating the crowd. Hence, the government is likely to go back to using pellet guns that would only facilitate in dispersing the crowd with minimal injuries during protests.
During the unrest of 2016 in Kashmir, when the pellet guns wounded around 15,000 civilians were wounded in the street protests, health experts had cautioned that the tiny pellets retained inside the victim’s body could be the “ticking time-bombs” that may explode any day. Scores of people including youngsters have died and over 1,000 were blinded by the “non-lethal” weapons.
