According to available documents, nearly 500 minors have disappeared in custody. At the same time, in a reply to Rajya Sabha, the government clarified that in the state of J&K there are no juvenile detainee — the reason being that there is no juvenile jail. Not just the Children’s Act of 1986 but even the Children’s Act (Care and Protection) 2000 is not implemented in J&K. Let us recall that in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN proclaimed that childhood is entitled to special care. Moreover, Article 37 of the UNCRC defines how such acts of aggression on a child are a breach of this agreement.

Again, subjecting adolescent girls to physical frisking by soldiers is a serious violation of those provisions that are celebrated as a step towards their emancipation as enshrined in the UN millennium goals and UNCRC.

This raises a very fundamental question relevant to India: as a signatory to international treaties, can India honour the same in breach?

The writer is an undergraduate student at St Stephen’s, Delhi