In a blatant invasion of privacy, authorities in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) have installed a GPS-enabled tracking anklet on a Kashmiri recently granted bail by a court in Udhampur district to monitor his movements.
A GPS tracker anklet is a wearable electronic device secured around the ankle that allows authorities to track a person’s location in real time. Its use in IIOJK reflects India’s efforts to further tighten the grip of occupation through technology.
Mukhtar Ahmed, son of Mohammad Rashid and resident of Karmara, Poonch, had been arrested in a fabricated case and had applied for bail. The Court of the Principal District & Sessions Judge, Udhampur granted bail, but made the installation of the GPS-enabled anklet a mandatory condition.
This is not an isolated incident. Many Kashmiris, who were arrested on fabricated charges and later released on bail, have been subjected to the same form of digital monitoring. Since August 2019, alongside unprecedented political repression, the people of IIOJK have been subjected to multiple layers of surveillance, including GPS tracking anklets.
The Kashmiri people are subjected to occupying authorities’ digital monitoring on a daily basis at checkpoints, workplaces and on social media. Indian forces’ personnel routinely confiscate Kashmiris’ cell phones to monitor communications.
