Malik Ashraf
WHILE the world remains oblivious to the sufferings of the people of India-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IO&JK), the Indian security forces feel free to kill, terrorize and brutalize them. Since 5 August 2019 more than 200 Kashmiris have been killed through extra-judicial killing. But that has not sapped the morale of the people of the State and the freedom fighters who continue to resist the Indian oppression besides carrying out retaliatory operations against the Indian security forces. A recent report in the New York Times dwelled on the state of affairs in the valley since the 5th of August in these words “Kashmir was cast into chaos in August when the Indian government revoked the region’s partial autonomy.
Since then, tension has been high in Kashmir Valley where many businesses were shuttered, streets emptied and, doctors said, residents’ hopelessness morphed into a severe psychological crisis. But despite the lockdown, fire-fights and skirmishes in Kashmir have not stopped. Earlier a similar report in the same newspaper had the headline ‘Kashmir under Siege and Lockdown Faces a Mental Health Crisis’. The people of Kashmir have paid a very high price in the struggle for their freedom. Being the most militarized zone in the world, Kashmir has witnessed killings, enforced disappearances, torture cases, rapes and other brutalities by the Indian armed forces over the decades. As per reports compiled by human rights organizations like Amnesty International which have kept track of the human rights abuses in IO&JK and the killings, more than one hundred thousand Kashmiris have been martyred since 1989, thousands of women have been raped besides enforced disappearances running into thousands.
According to the United Nations, an enforced disappearance occurs when people are arrested, detained or abducted against their will by the state, or groups and individuals acting on behalf or, with support from the state; followed by a refusal to disclose the whereabouts of the person. As per revelations made by the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) more than eight thousand families have lost their loved ones to enforced disappearance and are in search of finding a clue to their whereabouts. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court says when an enforced disappearance is committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed at any civilian population, it qualifies as a crime against humanity, depriving an individual of their fundamental rights. An enforced disappearance violates an individual’s right to liberty, right to freedom from torture, right to a fair trial, right to equal protection and right to presumption of innocence. In the light of the foregoing, enforced disappearance of the Kashmiri youth in IO&JK constitute a crime against humanity.
The Indian security forces have been carrying out these heinous crimes under the cover of the Armed Forces (Jammu & Kashmir) Special Powers Act of 1990, the Disturbed Areas Act of 1976 which was extended to Jammu and Kashmir in 1992, the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act of 1978 and Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act of 1967 which grant impunity to them from prosecution. In 2005, APDP unearthed the widespread existence of mass graves. In Baramulla alone, the total number of such graves is 940. On 10 July 2008, the European Parliament passed a resolution lending support for the investigations into the discovery of mass graves and enforced disappearances. But the Indian government cited lack of technology, expertise and human resources as the reason for not conducting the investigation, even though the European Parliament had offered financial assistance to take it forward.
Again In 2009, International People’s Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in India-occupied Kashmir released a second report in which 2,700 mass graves were found and investigated in Baramulla, Bandipora and Kupwara districts of Kashmir. The Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) in 2009 took suo motu cognizance of the report and a special investigation team (SIT) led by a Senior Superintendent of Police was constituted to conduct an inquiry. The SIT, in its report, confirmed the presence of 2,730 unidentified bodies buried across 37 sites in the three districts of north Kashmir. The report recommended that to stop the misuse of powers under AFSPA, the Public Safety Act and the Disturbed Areas Act, it is extremely important that wherever a person is killed, whether he is a militant or innocent killed during cross firing) his or her identification profile should be maintained properly. The only formal response from the Government to the SHRC was in the form of an Action Taken Report [ATR] dated 13 August 2012, denying the existence of the unmarked graves and saying that the unidentified bodies buried in the unmarked graves belong to foreign and local militants.
The Ministry of Home Affairs refused to accept the recommendations of the SHRC. Besides, they also said they don’t have enough laboratories to carry out the investigation process. In November 2017, the SHRC once again asked the Jammu & Kashmir government to investigate at least 2,080 unmarked mass graves, this time in the Poonch and Rajouri districts of Jammu. But there has neither been a probe nor an Action Taken Report from the government. The litany of the heinous crimes against the people of IO&JK by the Indian security forces since 1989 sends a shudder through the nerves of the people with conscience who espouse the cause of human rights and campaign for stopping crimes against humanity. One wonders where is the conscience of those nations who claim to be civilized, torch bearers of the human rights, human liberties and peace.
— The writer is freelance columnist based in Islamabad.
