The Village Defense Committees (VDCs) were set up in 1995 to fight the militancy in Jammu Kashmir. Under this strategy, the civilians, preferably, notorious hooligans and habitual offenders were armed. The government gave the justification that VDC will assist the government forces in counterinsurgency operations. VDC is a mercenary group armed, organised, and funded by the State government. In April 2013, the then Chief Minister Omar Abdullah informed the Jammu Kashmir legislative assembly that “26567 persons were working with the VDCs in 10 districts of Jammu division and Leh district of Ladakh. There are no VDCs in Kashmir Valley.”
Now the question arises, why did the state would need such a huge number of the armed militia when they have almost seven lakh troops and policemen to combat militancy? The VDCs were created in the districts of the Jammu region exactly the same period (1996) as the notorious Ikhwaan, which was formed in Kashmir and was assigned the same job. The probable reasons are that the members of both the Ikhwaan and VDCs were civilians and it was easy for them to keep an eye on militants and their sympathisers.
Second, whenever they were killed in counterinsurgency operations, they were not counted in the body count of troops thus maintaining the public opinion in the favour of excessive military actions in the name of strategic and national interest and their dependents did not become a liability on the state as the troopers’ would.
Third, they would bring the population to their knees and facilitate their submission to the state. For instance, during the Ikhwaan era, civilians were more scared of them compared to troopers. It was actually privatization of terror.
Fourth, as they are not regulars. Their action does not officially constitute a state action as their abuse of power is always portrayed as an act in a personal capacity and their maintenance is always cheap, unlike the regular troops. The action of armed forces on active duty makes the state responsible for their actions and deemed as purely a state action but for the private militia, the case is not the same they can be disowned by the state at will.
Similarly, in the context of Salva Judum, a VDC’s and Ikhwaan kind of militia operating in Chattisgarh, armed by the state to fight the Naxalite insurgency, the apex court in the case of Nandini Sundar & Ors. versus the State of Chattisgarh declared Salva Judum as illegal and unconstitutional and also declared the forming of such private militias as unconstitutional, illegitimate, and in violation of rule law the court stated that “The primordial value is that it is the responsibility of every organ of the State to function within the four corners of constitutional responsibility. That is the ultimate rule of law.” The court further stated that “you cannot give arms to somebody (a civilian) and allow him to kill. You will be an abettor of the offense under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code.”
Despite the verdict, the VDCs were not disbanded and whenever their members commit any crime or abuse police mostly remains reluctant to register FIR against them, and even when they rarely do, the investigation is not conducted in a fair manner which results in their acquittal, thus strengthening their dominance and boosting their morale to carry out such crimes and abuses with impunity the reluctance of police can be attributed to the fact that they are backed rather aligned with the same state which the police serves.
As of now, almost 196 cases pertaining to various offenses murder, kidnapping, extortion’ rape, and robbery and we have to also keep in mind that these are only the reported ones. We can only estimate the number of unreported cases owing to their brutality.
The VDC members carry out their actions without any regard to the rule of law.
The unchecked powers and a complete lack of accountability resulting in overwhelming suppression of the civil population and not of militants. The aim of constituting VDCs was to assist the forces against militants but it is clear that the basic purpose of their formation stands frustrated because the militants target the highly trained and sophisticatedly armed government forces so it makes no sense that that militants will fear or will be defeated by VDC militia.
Furthermore, they are never called to assist the forces during the encounters. So it is obvious that they are not effective against the militants but have been effective against the civilians by carrying out crimes against the civilian population resulting in their brutal suppression.
The recent killing of a youth leader of the opposition party and brutal shooting that killed a woman and her innocent four-year-old child is not something new. The VDC members are committing such kind of crimes and abuses all most on daily basis and this clearly indicates what they do and what they been done so far and what can they do in future.
