The recent arrest of seven Kashmiri students from a Ganderbal college for celebrating India’s loss to Australia in the cricket World Cup final has once again brought the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) into the spotlight. This incident is not isolated. In 2021, similar arrests were made in Srinagar and Uttar Pradesh (UP) for “celebrating Pakistan’s win”, which UP police termed as “sedition”.
While the sedition law is currently on pause, awaiting reformation in the Government of India’s updated criminal codes, its twin draconian law, the UAPA, remains intact. The UAPA is a law that leans more towards “jail, not bail”, allowing for arrested individuals to be imprisoned for unspecified, long pre-trial periods. A 2021 amendment to the law has further sharpened its edge, permitting individuals to be tagged as “terrorists” even without any organizational affiliation or association.
The police have wide latitude under the UAPA, and cases, when they reach court, tend to drag on. In 2021, of the 2,907 cases under trial, courts decided on just 68 – resulting in 27 convictions, 39 acquittals, and two discharges. This indicates a pendency rate of 98%, with acquittals outnumbering convictions.
The pre-trial jail term under the UAPA militates against the fundamentals of fairness and justice. Of the 4,800 cases under police investigation in 2021, more than 2,000 were pending for over three years. National crime records reported an 83% pendency at the investigation stage for the year. Given the jail-not-bail norm, thousands have languished behind bars.
The police often apply the UAPA as a means of intimidation, a practice severely criticised by higher courts and human rights experts. They argue that the law’s principal impact is striking terror among those who are not terrorists. However, lower courts have been unsuccessful in preventing arbitrary arrests on weak pretexts, with “chanting pro-Pakistan” slogans being a prime instance.
The hope is that courts will quickly intervene in the case of the Ganderbal youngsters, providing a much-needed check on the misuse of the UAPA.
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