Following protests and an FIR against Amnesty International India on Monday, RK Mattoo, president of the Kashmiri Pandits Association in Bengaluru, said that he was "100% in support" of the charges against the human rights advocacy group.
"The event was organised just to malign India's armed forces," Mattoo alleged. "You cannot just organise an event in Bengaluru against the country and get away with it," he said.
Mattoo recalls that they weren't invited to the event initially. He only came to know about the event through a colleague and then contacted Amnesty so that they could talk about the issues of Kashmiri pandits also.
"We were butchered in 1990s and now we are living like refugees in our own country. Being a human rights organisation, why is Amnesty silent on this?" questions Mattoo, adding that the people responsible for their plight are still roaming free today.
According to Mattoo, though the event 'Broken families' was designated to start at 7 pm on August 13, till 4 pm, Amnesty's Tara Rao and Aakar Patel, were still speaking to him about what he could talk about.
Then, when Mattoo said during a panel discussion that the India's armed forces are one of the "most disciplined" in the world, anti-army slogans were raised by many. However, Mattoo stands by his statement and says that if there have been excesses, armed forces personnel have been tried in court martial courts and punished.
"Why are you targeting the army? Why are you silent on the terrorism that happens there? The army is protecting us from that!" says Mattoo.Mattoo also alleged that Amnesty had no authentication for the families featured in the campaign. "They (Amnesty) told me that if someone comes to them for human rights violation, they give them a platform. But they should be asking why were these boys picked up by the army in the first place," Mattoo says.
Mattoo added that clarified that his support for the complaint against Amnesty was not reflective of any political affiliations but simply a regard for the country.
"It's a matter of India's security and sovereignty. It has to be taken seriously," he asserted.