On 15 August 2016, the police in Bengaluru registered a first information report against the human-rights organisation Amnesty International India under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, including sedition. The FIR was registered after representatives from Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad—a student body affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh—sought action against the organisation. The ABVP activists claimed that “anti-national” activities had taken place at “Broken Families,” an event that Amnesty India had hosted two days earlier at the United Theological College in Bengaluru, as part of its campaign against human-rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir. Protests against the human-rights organisation, primarily within Karnataka, have intensified since, and Amnesty India’s employees have reportedly been asked to work from home as a “precautionary measure.”
I have waited to get some clarity on what actually transpired at the event. Now that I have it, I feel compelled to say a few things. I hope they are read and pondered over in the right spirit by all parties, especially Kashmiri Pandits.
There is no doubt that the Amnesty International, like most rights groups, has turned a blind eye towards the plight of Kashmiri Pandits. That the organisation is sympathetic to Islamic groups became clear after the head of its gender unit, Gita Sahgal, left it six years ago, accusing it of “ideological bankruptcy.”
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