Indian Occupation of Kashmir

[EagleEyes]

By Amy Yee in New Delhi

Published: September 13 2006 03:00 | Last updated: September 13 2006 03:00

India and Pakistan's failure to punish armed forces that commit human rights abuses in Jammu and Kashmir has fanned the flames of violence and crippled hopes for peace, a rights group said yesterday.

The Indian army and paramilitaries have committed torture and have been behind "disappearances" and arbitrary detentions, and continue to execute Kashmiris in killings claimed as casualties resulting from clashes with militants, according to a report by Human Rights Watch.

Militants, many said to be backed by Pakistan, had carried out bombings and grenade attacks on civilians, had practised torture, and had attacked religious and ethnic minorities, it said.

The report comes ahead of a meeting between Manmohan Singh, India's prime minister, and Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, at this week's Non Aligned Movement summit in Cuba, which could signal a thaw in relations between the two neighbours since the July bombings in Mumbai.

"We will have an exchange of views on all issues, particularly the commitment of Pakistan not to allow its territory - and that includes parts of Jammu and Kashmir, which is in their occupation - to mount terrorist attacks against India," said Mr Singh yesterday.

The Kashmir insurgency remains a potential flashpoint between the nuclear-armed neighbours. Since 1989, the struggle against Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir has claimed more than 50,000 lives.

"Human rights abuses have been a cause as well as a consequence of the insurgency in Kashmir," said Brad Adams, Asia director at HRW. "Unless the Indian authorities address the human rights crisis in Jammu and Kashmir, a political settlement of the conflict will remain illusory."

However, there has been a shift in approaches recently, with Indian officials admitting rights violations and Pakistan officials acknowledging their role in influencing militants.

Attempts at resolving the conflict must focus on human rights protection and should involve an independent commission to investigate violations, said HRW.

Some of those fighting Indian rule in Jammu and Kashmir want full independence while others would like to merge with Pakistan.

India and Pakistan began peace talks in 2004 and have restored diplomatic, travel and sporting links. But New Delhi suspended talks on suspicion Pakistan-backed extremists had masterminded the July Mumbai bombings that killed more than 200. HRW pointed out that Indian laws prohibited its national and state human rights commissions from directly investigating abuses carried out by the army. "It's absurd that the world's largest democracy . . . has laws on its books that prevent members of its security forces from being prosecuted for human rights abuses," said Mr Adams.

*A Mumbai court yesterday found four members of the same family guilty in the 1993 Mumbai bombings that killed 257 in India's deadliest terrorist attack, Amy Yee and agencies report.

Judge PD Kode yesterday found Yakub, Essa, Yusuf and Rubina Memon guilty of conspiracy and abetting terror. They face jail terms ranging from a minimum of five years to life imprisonment. A total of 123 men and women were accused of involvement in the bombings, which targeted the Bombay Stock Exchange, the Air India building and other crowded areas. The judge has said the verdicts will be handed out in groups, taking up to two months.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007

 

[EagleEyes]

The brewing Kashmir ‘goulash’


By Shamshad Ahmad
The writer is a former foreign secretary


“Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.” --Oscar Wilde

A BACK-CHANNEL ‘deal’ on Kashmir is said to be in the offing. According to Foreign Minister Kasuri, the ‘confrontational mode’ of the subcontinent is being `rolled back’ in the face of what he describes as the ground realities of today’s turbulent world.

It seems, after Pakistan’s post-9/11 “turnaround,” we are in an unremitting business of ground reality-driven roll-backs. Kashmir might be our next rollback.

For nearly three years now, we have been hearing about what our leadership calls “flexible options” in pursuit of an “out of box” solution through a “no-borders-plus” approach as its preferred choice for what it likes to believe will be a win-win situation for all the parties to the dispute. President Musharraf has been throwing proposals here and there, at Iftar parties, in hotel lobbies and on TV screens to bring an end to the long-standing Kashmir dispute.

Musharraf’s personal vision of variable options represents an unprecedented “softening and flexibility” and a paradigm shift in Pakistan’s traditional Kashmir policy. In a controversial move, he has even offered to withdraw Pakistan’s demand for plebiscite as envisaged under the UN Security Council resolutions. His proposal for dividing Kashmir in ethnic regions which should be demilitarised and made autonomous entities with a semblance of joint supervision has not only evoked no response from India but has also deepened confusion over the Kashmir issue.

While India has yet to match Musharraf’s gestures of flexibility in any visible measure, its leaders keep repeating the claim that Kashmir is an integral part of India and have ruled out any “redrawing of boundaries” on the basis of religion. They also keep insisting that a solution to the dispute has to be found within the Indian constitution.

This could mean an outright rejection of the proposed `joint supervision’ of the disputed region unless Musharraf is seeking a cosmetic joint dispensation which would have no powers and no juridical status. As regards `demilitarisation’, one should not forget that this has been the crux of the issue and perhaps the sole major obstacle in implementing the UN Security Council resolutions. The issue would have been resolved long ago had the two countries implemented the UN Security Council’s call for demilitarisation.

Given India’s aversion to giving up its “constitutional” claim over Kashmir, any plan for demilitarisation or joint control over any region of Kashmir would appear impractical in the present circumstances. No Indian leader has so far reacted publicly to President Musharraf's Kashmir "self-governance" formula. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has only said that all these matters could be discussed at the appropriate forums. He was obviously alluding to the desirability of an institutional approach in addressing any new ideas that could help resolve the Kashmir dispute.

Privately, Indian officials have been saying that Pakistan’s changed position on Kashmir notwithstanding; there is considerable ground to be covered before any realistic and long-term solution can be found. In Pakistan, our readiness to forego our principled position on Kashmir, which is based on UN Security Council resolutions and rooted in a national consensus, is seen as a big “surrender” and a “turnaround” of policies that have over the decades cost Pakistan so heavily in terms of wars and conflicts.

India on its part has been able to maintain a consistency in its policies and priorities while fully exploiting the regional situation to link the Kashmiri struggle to the prevalent global concerns against terrorism, and to deflect the international attention from its own repressive policies in Kashmir by engaging in a fruitless dialogue with Pakistan.

Ironically, after its January 2004 resumption, the India-Pakistan composite dialogue has been focused more on terrorism than on the long-outstanding issues. In terms of the January 6, 2004, Islamabad joint Statement, Pakistan had “solemnly agreed not to allow its territory to be used for any terrorist activity against India.” Since then, India has managed to link the dialogue process to Paksitan’s ability or otherwise to stop alleged `infiltration’ from across its territory.

We also agreed under pressure from India after the Mumbai blasts and as a follow-up to the Havana “breakthrough” to the creation of a new but totally superfluous joint “anti-terror mechanism” with a mandate already covered in the existing mechanism of the India-Pakistan composite dialogue. The two countries already have a joint working group headed by their respective interior secretaries to address the issue of terrorism and drug trafficking.

How would the new set-up which is headed only at the level of additional secretaries in the foreign affairs ministries make the difference? It is obvious that India had made the new set-up a prerequisite for resumption of dialogue only to highlight Pakistan’s “terrorism-related” regional role and relevance and to divert the world attention from Kashmir issue to cross-border “terrorism.”

In its post-9/11 “strategic” policy shift, Pakistan became America’s strategic partner and has been engaged in a full-scale “war on terror” within its own territory and against its own people. It has apparently now joined India as its undeclared “strategic partner” in fighting another war on its behalf against its own people or those whom it has always acclaimed as legitimate `Kashmiri freedom fighters’.

It seems the future rounds of the composite dialogue will now be exclusively devoted to exchanging and disputing the lists of wanted or unwanted persons from each side. The lists of India’s violation of human rights will be of little relevance in the newly formatted peace process. Cross-border terrorism, not Kashmir will now be the main issue in this process.

In its inexplicable anxiety to sustain the dialogue with India, Pakistan is now assuming the onerous responsibility of ensuring an end to “violence, hostility and terrorism” in India. This is an impossible task for a government which has not been able to free its own country of recurring acts of terrorism and senseless violence.

Pakistan is the only country in the world which is now fighting a war against its own people. It has no sovereign control over its borders, and in a controversial move is now planning to `mine and fence’ its border with Afghanistan. It is today the “ground zero” of America’s war on terror and is paying a huge cost in terms of ever-mounting collateral damage in this on-going operation.

The biggest casualty, however, is Pakistan’s own credibility. It has staked everything in this proxy war, and has killed or “Guantanamoed” hundreds of its own people, yet it is being blamed for “not doing enough.” Meanwhile, the `faceless’ monster of terrorism is no longer confined to the wilderness of Waziristan and is out on our streets with vengeance, exploding bombs for random killings, spreading panic and challenging the government authority.

It is no less than a joke now that Pakistan, itself a victim of recurring terrorist acts and senseless violence should be guaranteeing “terrorism-free” borders with India or for that matter with Afghanistan. What is however painful is that in this murky environment of violence and suspicion, Kashmir is no longer the “core issue” involving the right of self-determination of the people of Kashmir. Instead, it has become only an issue of “cross-border infiltration” and terrorism.

For understandable reasons, the people in both Pakistan and Kashmir are getting worried over the direction of Islamabad’s Kashmir policy. Since the January 6, 2004 Islamabad agreement, we seem to have been progressively drifting away from our principled position on Kashmir. We have abandoned the high moral ground, a constant of our Kashmir policy, rooted in our commitment to the cardinal principle of self-determination as enshrined in the UN Charter.

We no longer speak of the UN Security Council resolutions and are instead rambling on half-baked and ad hoc approaches in the name of “pragmatism” and “flexible options.” Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Kasuri, in his resonant way, keeps defending the case for the Kashmir “turnaround” by claiming that it was the only way “ to save the last Kashmiri” from falling to India’s brutal repression. What an argument!

This is not the message that the government and the people of Pakistan flagged while observing the ‘Kashmir Day’ on February 5 this year in solidarity with the people of Kashmir and their just cause. By giving wrong signals, and that too at the highest level, Pakistan is only damaging the Kashmir cause and its own case as a party to this dispute.

While Pakistan’s “back-channel” bonhomie goes on in places of agreeable “ambience,” India spares no effort to reinforce its stranglehold over the Kashmiri people. In fact, we have helped it divide the Kashmiri leadership. The true representatives of the Kashmiri people have lost faith in Pakistan’s commitment to the Kashmir cause while the Kashmiri people themselves also stand totally disillusioned with Pakistan's changing stance. They feel abandoned and let down.

In making a paradigm shift in our Kashmir policy, President Musharraf has apparently taken no one into confidence, not even his handpicked cabinet or the Kashmir Committee in the marginalised parliament. Major political parties remain completely in the dark on Musharraf’s vision of the future of Kashmir. There is no institutional approach whatsoever in his policy initiatives on Kashmir.

He claims that he has the support of the “intelligence, the establishment and the foreign office” in his policies on Kashmir. Aren’t these agencies at his beck and call to support and promote the policies that he dictates to them? None of these entities incidentally have any roots in the people of Pakistan or have any elected status.

What is most worrisome is that after 50-plus years of our independent statehood, our leadership should be seeking to change the course on Kashmir and struggle for a “back-channel” deal on the `status quo’ under the cover of “demilitarisation-cum-self-governance” proposal.

But there is no shortage of variable options on Kashmir. Even on status quo perhaps there could be a more dignified and surely more `legal’ approach.

Published in Dawn.com

 

[EagleEyes]

Fake encounters

S.M. Hali
Fake encounters against imaginary Pakistani soldiers by the Indian Army have been quite frequent but recently a gruesome case has been unearthed involving Indian Police and Army officers' Indian-Occupied Kashmir. The Economist of 15 February 2007, in its article 'Encountering reality' reveals the story of a 35-year-old carpenter Abdul Rahman Paddar of Larnoo Kokernag.
Late last month, a police investigation in Ganderbal district turned up his body. The investigations revealed that Paddar was killed in a fake encounter at Waskoora village in Ganderbal on December 8 and was buried as a Lashkar-e-Tayyaba commander Abu Hafiz at Sumbal. Mr Paddar's family claims he had paid 80,000 rupees to SSP Hansraj Parihar to get himself a government job.
Instead, it is alleged Hansraj Parihar pocketed the bribe and killed him claiming a reward for killing a militant. It appears that the fake encounter with the carpenter was only the tip of the iceberg. In Ganderbal, Indian police unearthed four more Kashmiris buried as Pakistani militants. The corpses were exhumed publicly, in front of the victims' families, the press and thousands of seething locals, many calling for the heads of the accused murderers. The outrageous acts were aimed at getting out-of-turn promotions and cash rewards.
Ghulam Nabi Azad, the Occupied Kashmir's chief minister, and the Indian army ordered separate inquiries. Eight police officers have been arrested, including Hansraj Parihar, the top policeman in Ganderbal, who is accused of having planned the killings. Mr Parihar ran one of the police's much-loathed "Special Operations Groups" (SOGs). These outfits were in theory disbanded and merged with the regular police soon after the present coalition government in Occupied Kashmir took office in 2002. It promised to end human-rights abuses such as "encounter killings" and to show a "healing touch". Yet the SOGs still operate, and a group in Kashmir campaigning against the disappearances of citizens into police custody says the number has risen to more than 10,000 since the start of the insurgency despite Dr ManMohan Singh's promise of "zero tolerance" of human-rights abuses.
The Jammu and Kashmir High Court has issued notices to the DGP (Home) and Jammu SSP and Deputy Commissioner over an allegation of yet another fake encounter. A Jammu and Kashmir Police intelligence wing report has exposed a fake encounter in the state, where a 24-year-old TV mechanic was killed in Nagrota in Jammu and branded a militant. Police stumbled on the ghastly case during investigating into the disappearance of Mr Paddar.
Numerous disappearance cases are emerging after the five exhumed bodies. There is a father whose photographer son was picked up in 1997. After 10 years, the J-K Human Rights Commission and later, the court established that his son was picked up and killed. The father has chronicled his travails in a booklet. He wants the body "to give my son a decent burial".
There is a man and his wife in search of their son, picked up by police and army in 2003. They carry a college identity card of their 23-year-old son and a painful story how they sold paddy land to pay Rs 2,30,000 as bribe to a counter-insurgent-turned-politician who had promised to arrange a meeting in jail. Today, they say, "If dead, we want the body". The line outside the J-K Police headquarters is long as families seeking justice see hope after the recent exposé.
The story of Abdul Rashid Baig, a retired Excise Inspector, is tragic. On September 9, 1997, his 28-year-old son Fayaz Ahmad was picked by SSP Hansraj Parihar (while he was SP, Awantipora) from Kashmir University where he worked as a photographer in Central Asian Studies department. "Parihar accepted that he picked up my son. I kept visiting his office... He kept our hope alive, saying Fayaz will be released soon." After two years, Baig says, he approached the State Human Rights Commission. "In April, 2000, they issued an order asking the government to file a case of abduction and murder against Parihar and his team. Nothing happened. Then I approached High Court. It upheld the panel's order on October 9, 2003. Still nothing happened." The result of his trauma is a 45-page booklet, 'Custodial Disappearance and an Unconcerned Government'.
Small wonder that a callous and unconcerned Indian government has neither permitted a joint Indo-Pak inquiry into the Samjotha Express carnage, nor released a detailed passengers' list but chose to bury the unclaimed bodies at Panipat for a gruesome act of terrorism which took place on its watch and territory resulting from its terrible security lapses.

http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/feb-2007/28/columns5.php

 

[EagleEyes]

India issues passport to APHC leader Gillani

Updated at 2400 PST
SRI NAGAR: Indian government has finally issued ailing APHC leader Syed Ali Gillani a passport to travel abroad for treatment of cancer.

Regional Passport officials in Sri Nagar said that Gillani's passport has been handed over to his son Naseem Zafar Gillani.

Chairman Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf and founder of Shaukat Khanam Memorial Hospital, Imran Khan has offered the 72-years-old leader for treatment of his kidney cancer in his hospital.


Gillani decides to visit Pakistan for cancer treatment at SKMH

Updated at 2400 PST
NEW DELHI: Veteran APHC leader Syed Ali Gillani has finally decided to come to Pakistan for cancer treatment in Shaukat Khanam Memorial Hospital (SKMH).

"I will soon visit Pakistan," the ailing leader told founder of Shaukat Khanam Hospital, Imran Khan on phone Thursday.

Giving details of the talks, Imran Khan said that he has offered Syed Ali Gillani to come to Pakistan for cancer treatment at Shaukat Khanam Cancer Hospital. Imran Khan said the Kashmiri leader needs specialized treatment available outside India.

He said: "I told Mr Gilani about the facilities Shaukat Khanum hospital provides for treatment of cancer patient." He said Syed Ali Gillian also wants to come to Pakistan instead of going abroad.

Syed Gillani said that his aim is to see independence of Kashmiri people and that the sacrifices rendered by Kashmiris would not go waste, Khan added.

Following telephonic talks, Khan directed the hospital administration to finalize the arrangements for Ali Gillani's treatment on immediate basis, while cancelling his visit to Islamabad to wait for Syed Ali Gillani in Lahore.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/updates.asp#19085

 

[EagleEyes]

The odd man out in Kashmir

Senior Kashmiri leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, head of his own faction of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, recently diagnosed with cancer, was interviewed recently by a Srinagar-based journalist. Given that a two-day conference titled ‘Jammu and Kashmir dispute: Models for Resolution’ was hosted in Islamabad over the weekend, and attended by APHC leaders, the following interview may help provide some balance to the whole Kashmir resolution debate. Mr Geelani was speaking to Z G Mohammad.

Q. A lot of debate is going on about demilitarisation in the state, New Delhi and Islamabad do you support this idea?

A. We fully support the demand for demilitarisation. It is our fundamental stand, we cannot oppose it but another sentence should be suffixed to this demand and that is the holding of a referendum after demilitarisation in the state in accordance with the UN resolution to know if people of Jammu and Kashmir want to join India or Pakistan. We want both India and Pakistan troops to withdraw from Indian Held Kashmir and Azad Kashmir and then hand over the region to the United Nations for holding a referendum in the state and implementing its eighteen resolutions about Kashmir so that the 13 million people living in Azad Kashmir, Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh are allowed their fundamental right the right to self-determination.

Q. What do you make of the out-of-the-box proposals that Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has advanced as a way out of the conflict?

A. Our stand is unambiguous and the proposals that are being piloted are full of ambiguity and there are no explanations attached to these proposals and they do not fulfil the requirements of the Kashmir problem and there is a lot of confusion in them. There is confusion in the people who pilot these proposals and in those who listen to them. We have no confusion. In unambiguous terms we say that Jammu and Kashmir is a disputed territory and we have been demanding that India should fulfil its commitments made before the comity of nations, the problem will be resolved. Now after 59 years stating that these proposals are a step towards resolution does not stand the tests — since 2004 India and Pakistan have been talking but there is no progress on Kashmir. India is not budging an inch from its irrational and immoral stand and in this situation how can one agree with these proposals which have so far failed to create even a ripple. Unless India agrees that Kashmir is a disputed territory — all proposals are meaningless and fruitless.

Q. But if India were to agree to the demilitarisation option, even in a phased manner, will not that be a step forward?

A. My answer to that is a counter-question: is India ever going to agree to demilitarisation? It is instead consolidating its position — thousand of acres of land are being requisitioned for building more army bases. The [Indian] newspapers are full of stories on this issue. Unless India changes its unrealistic policy on Kashmir nothing is going to happen. General Musharraf first proposed that Pakistan was ready to find some solution by bypassing the UN resolution but India showed no response. Then he suggested dividing the state in seven zones for facilitating India for finding out a solution but India rejected it. Then he suggested making the LoC porous but India did not respond. Then he suggested self-governance and India responded by saying that there was already self-governance in Jammu and Kashmir state. It asserted that people in the state have been electing their own government for past fifty seven years. Now they are talking about demilitarisation and Indian prime minister quite categorically turned it down recently.

Q. India has been saying that it is ready to initiate demilitarisation in Jammu and Kashmir but that Pakistan was not ready.

A. This is not true. Pakistan has never ruled out withdrawing its troops from Azad Kashmir for enabling the UN to hold a referendum in the state. It has always shown keenness saying that it was ready for implementing the UN resolution in Kashmir. In fact, historically this has been Pakistan’s stand.

Q. As far as India’s stand on Kashmir is concerned it seems that it is in no mood to allow people of Jammu and Kashmir their right to self-determination or hold a plebiscite in the state as you demand. Do you have an alternative solution in mind?

A. Before me the only solution for the problem is right to self-determination for the people of the state. And at this juncture when the Pakistan government is presenting every now and then new proposals my sincere suggestion to the people of the state, the people of Pakistan and the Pakistan government is that there should be one stand only — that their stand on the issue be the same. Giving new proposals also indicates that Pakistan is budging from its fundamental and historical stand and this only serves to strengthen India’s position in Kashmir. And at this juncture when the international community is interested in the resolution of Kashmir problem both the Kashmir leadership and the Pakistan government should adhere to their stand on Kashmir and not exhibit any kind of weakness.

Q. The other faction of the Hurriyat led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq is talking to both India and Pakistan but about you there is an impression that you are a hardliner and you are not ready to come on the negotiating table. If you are invited for talks by both the countries will you agree? There were reports that you have rejected an invitation to meet with the Pakistani prime minister which was made to you during your recent meeting with Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri.

A. No I have not rejected invitation to Pakistan. I told Mr Kasuri that I have no travel documents. The government of India has impounded my passport many years back and I am not allowed to travel abroad. We have never been against dialogue but so far all dialogues have been fruitless. When I was chairman of the All India Hurriyat Conference, then united, the Hurriyat executive was permitted to hold talks with India. I talked to Wajahat Habibullah, R K Misri and Admiral Nayar — all interlocutors representing New Delhi — more than once and when placed before them my point of view and asked them to place these points before the government of India. But after I did that they never turned up with any feedback or follow-up. After the division of the Hurriyat the faction led by Mirwaiz has been talking to government of India and so far there have been no results. Like I said earlier, unless the government of India shows some flexibility there can be no forward movement.

Q. History shows that not much can be achieved unless those struggling for a cause are willing to come to the negotiating table. What do you say to that?

A. You have fifty-nine years history before you — so far India has not shown any flexibility in its stand. Indian and Pakistani leaders have been meeting, conferences and conventions are being held all the time now, the Kashmiri leadership has been meeting the Indian leadership but so far India has been only pursuing a one point programme — and that is to make the Pakistani and Kashmiri leadership agree to the conversion of the LoC into a permanent border. That in fact has been also the strategy of India’s supporters at the international level. I can safely say that India has no other plan on this.

Q. India and Pakistan fought three wars but nothing substantial has happened on the Kashmir front. So what can be achieved by fighting?

A. It is true India and Pakistan fought three wars over the region. However, since 1947 India has not shown any inclination to allow Kashmiris the right to self-determination. In such a situation we have two options before us: one, to say good bye to our struggle and surrender before mighty India or two, remain steadfast and fight for our cause. I choose the second and I believe victory will be ours as Allah is on our side.

http://thenews.jang.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=47438

 

[EagleEyes]

Ex-cop seeks son’s whereabouts in held Kashmir

ISLAMABAD: In occupied Kashmir, heartbroken by his only son’s custodial disappearance aged Abdul Ahad, a retired policeman, bemoans the day he joined the Jammu and Kashmir police.

Ahad’s son, Muhammad Younis (28) was picked up by the men of Indian Border Security Force (BSF) from his house in Beerwah, Budgam in 2002.

“After 28 years of service in police, in return it could not even let me know whether my son has been killed or is alive,” Ahad said amid sobs and tears.

“For over a year, police refused to register an FIR against the guilty BSF men as they wanted to protect them. I wonder if this can happen to a retired policeman, the fate of the civilians whose kin are missing in custody would be worst,” he said, while talking to media men. Ahad said some Indian army agents were after my son and other youth of the area. And one day they forcibly took Younis with them but I managed to save my son from their clutches, KMS reported.

Then Younis re-started his embroidery business and all was going fine till the agents again started to harass him. They threatened my son of dire consequences.

Few days later, BSF men picked him up. “I went to their camp but they categorically denied his arrest,” he said.

Ahad, father of four unmarried daughters, said that an FIR was registered in Police Station Budgam but my son’s whereabouts have not been located as yet.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=6744

 

[Neo]

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

India puts Kashmir unrest toll at 42,147

SRINAGAR: Indian Kashmir’s 17-year-old insurgency has left 42,147 people dead, more than a third civilians, according to official figures released on Monday by the revolt-hit region’s police.

However, the latest report, a copy of which was obtained by AFP, did not include the people who have disappeared in the region since the unrest began in 1989. The government says between 1,000 to 3,900 people have disappeared, while rights groups say up to 10,000 are missing – the majority of them after their arrest by security forces.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\03\27\story_27-3-2007_pg7_28

 

[EagleEyes]

Cops, soldiers charged with killing Kashmiri vendor

SRINAGAR: Authorities in Indian-held Kashmir have charged nine members of the security forces with murdering a street vendor and trying to pass him off as a Pakistani militant, officials said on Thursday.

“The accused were charged with abduction, murder and destruction of evidence,” a police official said of the charges, the latest in flurry of cases against Indian security personnel in the divided and revolt-hit state.

The vendor, Ghulam Nabi Wani, was detained by police in the state summer capital Srinagar in March last year, driven to northern Baramulla district and killed in a faked shoot-out. He was later falsely presented as a “Pakistani militant”, although DNA tests confirmed his real identity.

The charges, announced late on Wednesday, are the latest to be levelled against security forces after authorities in February exhumed the bodies of five people who were also killed and passed off as militants.

Police have already charged more than a dozen security force personnel with murdering a Muslim cleric and a carpenter in two other fake clashes with militants. afp

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\04\20\story_20-4-2007_pg7_3

 

[Neo]

May 28, 2007
‘India unlikely to reduce Kashmir troops’

SRINAGAR, May 27: India is unlikely to reduce the number of troops in occupied Kashmir immediately, the state chief minister said on Sunday, citing a recent surge in violence in the Himalayan region.

In March, New Delhi set up a panel of experts to determine whether to reduce the troop numbers after a fall in violence in the region since 2004.

But Kashmir's Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said recent events suggested troop withdrawal may not be feasible.

“Though all of us desire withdrawal of troops ... it may not be possible to do it in view of the fact that there has been increase in violence incidents in the recent past,” Azad said in a statement.

India has around half a million troops in Kashmir battling a Muslim separatist insurgency. Officials say more than 42,000 people have been killed in the revolt since 1989. Human rights groups put the toll at about 60,000 dead or missing.

India pulled out a few thousand troops in early 2006 from Kashmir due to decreased levels of violence, but local politicians want more soldiers withdrawn.

On Saturday, two soldiers were killed and two wounded when militants exploded a bomb and fired at a security patrol near the Line of Control, a military control line which divides Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

Last week, seven militants and a soldier were killed in gun battles in southern Kashmir.—Reuters

http://www.dawn.com/2007/05/28/top11.htm

 

[Neo]

20,000 migrant workers flee Kashmir​

SRINAGAR: Some 20,000 migrant labourers have fled the held Kashmir in the past three weeks after Muslim rebels told them to leave, officials said on Thursday.

The mainly Hindu migrants, who work as low-paid masons, carpenters, painters and barbers, began leaving last month when two of them were accused of raping and killing a teenage Muslim girl.

The incident evoked sharp condemnation, with Hizbul Mujahideen demanding that all migrant workers leave or face unspecified consequences.

Days later Hizbul retracted the threat but the exodus has continued.

“Some 20,000 non-locals have already left and this exodus may continue,” said Kashmir Governor SK Sinha.

Some migrants said growing local hostility towards them was forcing them to leave.

“Since the incident we’re being looked down as criminals,” Sant Ram, a labourer from Bihar state, said. Ram said he would leave by the end of this month. afp

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