Indian activists have slammed the authorities in Indian-administered Kashmir for placing a Global Positioning System (GPS) tracker on the physique of a person dealing with “terrorism” prices – the primary such use of digital monitoring reported within the South Asian nation.

For greater than every week now, Ghulam Muhammad Bhat, a 65-year-old resident of the area’s essential metropolis of Srinagar, has been strolling with the tracker round his ankle, which officers mentioned has been launched for prisoners out on bail.

The officers mentioned the gadget will permit safety companies to take care of round the clock surveillance on defendants.

Bhat, a lawyer, was an in depth affiliate of Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Kashmir’s prime separatist chief, who, till a yr earlier than his dying in 2021, presided over the Hurriyat Conference, the main separatist group in Indian-administered Kashmir, a area additionally claimed by neighbouring Pakistan.

Bhat was arrested at his Srinagar dwelling in 2011 underneath the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) for allegedly financing the actions of the Hurriyat Conference. He was held in a jail in New Delhi and denied bail a number of occasions till final week when it was lastly accepted.

‘Imprisonment by other means’

As a part of Bhat’s bail circumstances, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) courtroom within the southern metropolis of Jammu ordered authorities to trace his actions 24 hours a day. The courtroom additionally requested him to not change his residence whereas he’s launched on bail.

“The Superintendent of Police, Srinagar shall keep the mobility of the applicant on track so as to notice the activities of the applicant time and again,” the courtroom order mentioned.

A police officer in Indian-administered Kashmir advised Al Jazeera the GPS gadget will assist authorities monitor real-time places of defendants to make sure they adjust to their bail circumstances.

“It is GPS- and SIM-based, and it alerts the control room if a person tries to remove it,” the official mentioned on the situation of anonymity as a result of he isn’t authorised to talk to the media.

But rights activists mentioned the black, square-shaped, waterproof gadget is a type of “virtual imprisonment” and compromises the privateness of a person who’s dealing with trial however not convicted.

“We know from other contexts where this technology is used that GPS tracker is imprisonment by other means. Given that it is used against undertrial accused, it relies on the logic that one is guilty until proven innocent. That is injustice,” Mohamad Junaid, a Kashmiri and assistant professor of anthropology on the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts within the United States, advised Al Jazeera.

Junaid mentioned the worst half is that any type of political dissent can now be seen as a violation of bail circumstances. “That makes this new process mind and mobility control, a true techno dystopia,” he mentioned.

Officials defend transfer

In September, a parliamentary panel really helpful using GPS trackers on inmates to scale back the stress on India’s notoriously overcrowded jails.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau, there are 554,034 prisoners in Indian jails and 427,165 of them – 76 % – are awaiting trial. In Indian-administered Kashmir, the place a crackdown on pro-freedom teams has seen hundreds of arrests, that quantity is 91 %.

Earlier this month, RR Swain, the director common of police within the area, advised reporters there was no mechanism to make sure the bail circumstances of a suspect freed on bail are being adopted. He mentioned real-time monitoring of the accused is important.

“So we had to think of something that would address it. We came up with a tracker that is widely used in Western countries. We are happy that we have fixed the first tracker on an accused person,” Swain mentioned.

“I have been told that this person [Bhat] was carrying 5 million Indian rupees [$60,000] in a gas cylinder for terrorists and separatist financing when he was arrested. With the help of the tracker, we can monitor his movements as directed by the court. We are the extended arms of the court,” he mentioned.

Ajai Sahni, a safety analyst on the Institute for Conflict Management, a New Delhi-based suppose tank, advised Al Jazeera the GPS tracker is a situation for defendants to get bail.

“Otherwise, for most of these people, it would be difficult to get bail. … It makes things much easier for both the undertrials, so that they can be given bail under greater confidence and for the police so that these people do not get into mischief,” he mentioned.

Sahni mentioned the gadget is used internationally, particularly when an accused faces critical prices.

“In that case, some restrictions can be expected. Invasion of privacy is there till the moment you are arrested. The moment you are accused of a crime, most of your rights are diluted unless they are proven innocent. They [the accused] will go through one restriction or the other, and this [tracker] is better than being in jail,” he added.

However, Ravi Nair, govt director of the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre, argued that digital tagging fitted to the physique of an individual might elevate problems with elementary liberties, equivalent to freedom of motion or an individual’s proper to privateness.

“The state through tagging seeks to maintain public security, but on the other hand, those subjected to it must be accorded their fundamental rights,” he advised Al Jazeera.

He mentioned using digital monitoring raises quite a few moral, authorized and sensible points.

“The surveillance potential creates concerns of overregulation and infringement of human rights. The necessity for ensuring informed consent of those chosen to be subject to monitoring should be guaranteed and effective procedures established to deal with unethical or illegal practices,” he mentioned.

The reality {that a} non-public agency manufactures the GPS trackers can also be a serious concern, Nair mentioned.

“It is also important to ask whether the security establishment has developed any standards and ethics in electronic monitoring, or are we creating a new security creep?”