Did Tosa Maidan firing range cause casualties, HC asks govt

Ishfaq Tantry

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, May 9

The J&K High Court today directed the Defence Ministry and other respondents, including the state government, to file a response within four weeks indicating if lives of civilians were lost during the firing and artillery exercises at ‘Tosa Maidan Field Firing Range’, which has now been declared a tourist destination after it was denotified in 2014.

The Court also directed the authorities to indicate if rules had been framed for the firing ranges in J&K.

“File response within four weeks indicating whether any rules have been framed under section 13 of the Manoeuvres Field Firing and Artillery Practice Act 1938. Reply to also indicate whether lives of civilians were lost during the firing and artillery exercises at Tosa Maidan,” a division bench of Chief Justice Badar Durrez Ahmed and Justice Ali Mohammad Magrey observed in its orders in a PIL by one Lubna Qadri.

It also impleaded the Defence Ministry as one of the party respondents in the PIL, which prays for directions to the authorities to conduct a detailed survey of the Tosa Maidan area in central Kashmir to assess the loss and damage caused to human beings and environment of the entire area.

Though the government has never officially declared the number of civilian victims of the artillery and other military exercises, the Budgam district authorities in response to an RTI application in October 2013 revealed that 64 persons had lost their lives due to unexploded shells at Tosa Maidan over the years. In his submission today, petitioner counsel Altaf Khan prayed for direction to respondents to pay “individual compensation” to the families of deceased and injured persons due to artillery and other military exercises.