Amnesty International denied permission to hold press briefing in Srinagar
Srinagar: Authorities here Wednesday refused permission to Amnesty International to hold a briefing on alleged misuse of the controversial Public Safety Act (PSA), which provides for detention of a person up to one year without trial.
An Amnesty spokesperson said the authorities had not given permission to the human rights organisation for holding a press briefing on the subject.
"We have been told that we have been denied official permission to hold the event, citing 'prevailing law and order situation'," the spokesperson said.
Later, the organisation issued a press release on the matter.
"The Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act (PSA) circumvents the criminal justice system in Jammu and Kashmir to undermine accountability, transparency and respect for human rights," the Amnesty International India alleged in the statement.
The human rights NGO claimed it analysed case studies of 210 detainees, who were booked under the PSA between 2012 and 2018.
The Amnesty International India called on the government of Jammu and Kashmir to immediately repeal the J&K Public Safety Act and other legislations facilitating the use of administrative detentions and ensure that all detainees held in administrative detention are released.
On the report, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Secretary B V R Subrahmanyam said there is a rule of law in the country.
"The PSA is an Act and there is a judicial system which has checks and balances on the Act. You go and check the records. There are PSAs which are upheld by the courts and there are PSAs which are struck down by the courts.
"So please understand that the entire system is working under checks and balances. When the record is good, the court upholds, when the record is bad, the court strikes down," he said.
The chief secretary said sometimes police officers complain that so many PSAs are being struck down by the courts.
"So be it. That's the law of the nation. The strength of this country, the great nation of India is the rule of law. I think it is upheld by the courts and we have great pride in the courts," he added.
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Over 17,000 people went missing in Delhi in 2024: NCRB
New Delhi (PTI): A total of 23,058 people, comprising 9,482 men and 13,576 women, were reported missing in Delhi in 2024, according to the latest National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).
Of the total, 5,491 were children below the age of 18 — 1,571 boys, 3,920 girls.
The city recorded 17,567 fresh adult missing persons cases in 2024, comprising 7,911 men and 9,656 women.
According to the NCRB data, released on Wednesday, 14,637 men, 18,238 women and six transgender persons were still missing from previous years.
At the latest count, in 2024, Delhi had a total of 55,939 missing persons cases — 24,119 men, 31,814 women and six transgender persons.
In 2024, police traced or collected 28,392 missing persons, including 12,182 men, 16,208 women and two transgender persons.
Only half of the men and half of the women who went missing could be traced.
A total of 27,547 missing persons – 11,937 men, 15,606 women, four transgender persons — were yet to be untraced by the end of the year, the data showed.
The data also revealed that 5,352 children from previous years remained untraced at the beginning of 2024.
The number of still missing boys was 1,621, and the number of missing girls was 3,729. Two transgender children were yet to be found.
After adding the pending cases from previous years, the total number of missing children cases handled in 2024 rose to 10,843.
The police traced or recovered 6,762 missing children — 2,030 boys, 4,732 girls.
The recovery rate stood at 63.6 per cent for boys and 61.9 per cent for girls, while no transgender child was traced.
By the end of 2024, a total of 4,081 children remained untraced, 1,162 of them boys, 2,917 girls, and two transgender children.
