Kashmir | News & Discussions.

[Spring Onion]

Kashmir; from paradise to mass graves

Nazia Nazar July 28, 2008

Recently, the European Parliament passed a resolution calling upon the government of India to ensure an impartial investigation into the unidentified mass graves discovered in the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir. The adoption of this resolution by the European Parliament despite the hurdles created by the Indian lobby is, indeed, laudable. The resolution was passed soon after a report by the Srinagar-based Association of the Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) came to the fore, indicating the existence of mass graves in many areas of Indian-Held Kashmir (IHK). Since 2006, the graves of at least 940 Kashmiris are reported to have been discovered in 18 villages in the Uri district alone.

Apart from the APDP report about mass graves, Angana Chatterji, co-convener of the International People´s Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian-administered Kashmir, is also the eyewitness of those unmarked mass graves which she found during her visit to Baramulla and Kupwara districts. She expressed her deep concern over human rights violations in IHK in her article titled ´Mass graves in Kashmir´. Angana Chatterji, an Indian citizen, is being harassed by Indian security and intelligence personnel after her revelation of mass graves.

Most of those buried in the graves are believed to be the missing persons who became the victims of fake encounters by the Indian armed forces. The relatives of those missing persons had hoped that their loved one would return to them one day. Such an innocent hope cherished by an old Kashmiri carpenter was shattered when he was summoned for exhumation where the dead body of his missing son was found. "He is my son," the old man cried in sheer agony and pain while identifying the dead body. His son, his only hope, was shot dead and secretly buried by the Indian security forces despite the fact that he was a harmless civilian. This story caught media attention last year but it was not the only tale of horror. Killing of local residents in fake encounters is quite common in Kashmir. The discovery of mass graves in IHK is a clear indication that genocide of Kashmiri Muslims is being carried out silently by 700,000 Indian troops which are stationed there.

In April 2008, Amnesty International (AI) had urged the Indian government to launch urgent investigation into the mass graves, which were thought to contain the remains of victims of human rights abuses in the context of the armed conflict that has raged in the region since 1989. Norwegian government has termed ´alarming´ about new discoveries of unidentified graves in IHK despite the fact that India is signatory to the UN´s Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances.

To cover up its guilt, the Indian army had stated that those found buried were ´foreign militants´ killed lawfully during the armed encounters with the security forces. However, local villagers bear witness that most buried were local residents of nearby villages. Under international pressure, the Indian government claims that it would dismiss those soldiers who are involved in human rights violation. If this is the case then the Indian government should dismiss its 700,000 troops which have been involved in the massacre of 90,000 innocent Kashmiri men, women and children for the last two decades. The data containing the incidents of human rights violation in IHK is heart-rending. According to an unofficial estimate, 6,878 Kashmiris have been killed in Indian custody while more than 10,000 people disappeared, 106,818 children orphaned, 22,473 women lost their husbands and 9,813 women gang-raped.


According to the UN, "An estimated one million (Kashmiri) women have been bereaved, tortured or humiliated and beaten up or killed; many hundreds have been subjected to barbaric sexual assaults. Sexual harassment is used as a weapon to force people into submission." The miseries of Kashmiri Muslims do not end here. All the methods of torture are used to subjugate the Kashmiri people such as severe beatings, electric shocks, suspension by the feet or hands, stretching the legs apart, burning with heated objects, crushing the muscles with a heavy wooden roller, gouging of eyes, applying a hot iron rod to the flesh in a manner similar to the branding of animals, inserting sharp needles into the eardrums, etc. Such gory incidents are a routine affair in Kashmir where Muslims are punished simply because they cherish the dream of freedom.

It is happening because Indian security personnel have been given unlimited power of using force against Kashmiris through countless draconian laws such as Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), Terrorism and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA), Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), and the Jammu And Kashmir Disturbed Areas Act (DAA). With these powers, it is impossible to hold security forces accountable for human rights violations carried out by them. If some prosecutions are made, the cases remain in courts for years and the accused remain on job without any fear.

With the discovery of mass graves, the European Union (EU) through its resolution has invited India to investigate the matter impartially but, unfortunately, New Delhi has refused to provide access to the United Nations Military Observers (UNMO). The onus lies on the international community to press upon India to stop its state terrorism and allow international human rights organisations to look into the massive acts of human rights abuses in Held Kashmir. India should also be pressurized to repeal those draconian laws under whose shadow human rights violations are taking place. Demilitarisation of Kashmir until the issue is resolved amicably could mitigate the sufferings and agonies of Kashmiri Muslims.

Kashmir, which is considered a paradise on earth for its enchanting scenic beauty, is now turning into a ´secret´ graveyard of its own inhabitants who cherish the dream of freedom. It is happening in the 21st century when thousands of human rights organisations, philanthropic NGOs, and most important, the UNO exist in this world. Is it not a mockery and travesty of justice?

American Chronicle | Kashmir; from paradise to mass graves

 

[Khajur]

While mass graves are being unearthed in the valley and the whole pakistan media knows about it...but there is no voice of concern being raised from the state politicians or even by the separatist Huriyat guys who calls bandh of pity issues every other day ...making indian media,consequently indian ppl complelty unaware of it .

Its may be the news is pakistan specific.

 

[BATMAN]

^^ India people are not able to read the book of Jaswant Singh! Shall we blame Jaswant Sing?
Kashmiris have no control over media and fear of mass killing is enough to keep many mouth shut.

 

[Nemesis]

First, because we all know that the first part of the slogan is the embarrassing and unadorned truth about India, the emerging superpower. Second, because all Indians who are not nanga or bhookha are—and have been—complicit in complex and historical ways with the cruel cultural and economic systems that make Indian society so cruel, so vulgarly unequal.

Hilariously ironic. So does Arundhati Roy - who resides in the poshest colony of new delhi - count herself as one of the complicit that makes Indian society so cruel and so vulgarly unequal?

I think Arundhati Roy is a very good author, and she does talk sense most of the time, but this is not one of them.

 

[Spring Onion]

Hilariously ironic. So does Arundhati Roy - who resides in the poshest colony of new delhi - count herself as one of the complicit that makes Indian society so cruel and so vulgarly unequal?

I think Arundhati Roy is a very good author, and she does talk sense most of the time, but this is not one of them.

Hey good to see you here Nemesis

And the last time i checked the emotional indians have termed all her work as sensless whereas the sane elements do agree India does have a society so cruel and so vulgarly unequal.

 

[DesiGuy]

This is not a matter of opinion.
These are documented facts.

We, on this forum, have the luxury to debate this as an abstract concept, but thousand of Kashmiris have lost their life or been tortured or raped because they believe strongly enough to fight for their freedom.

And countless Indian and Pakistani soldiers have also died over this.

This is a matter of human rights that India suppresses by force because, as many Indians have admitted, releasing Kashmir would open the floodgates to other ethnic movements within India.

And, Will Pakistan let live Kashmir a, without interfering in it?


i don't think so.

 

[DesiGuy]

We're everywhere.....

BOO

when i was a kid, you could do nothng, now what will you do?


Kill, no wonder.

 

[vandemataram]

no one likes to fly indian flag in pak!

Well no one likes to fly Indian flags in Pakistan ...do we had to do with force...like in 1965

 

[Y2A]

While mass graves are being unearthed in the valley and the whole pakistan media knows about it...but there is no voice of concern being raised from the state politicians or even by the separatist Huriyat guys who calls bandh of pity issues every other day ...making indian media,consequently indian ppl complelty unaware of it .

Its may be the news is pakistan specific.

The news is just an out break of the sequence of events took place previously and probably main stream indian media "diligently" ignored it as they were expecting some thing like this, no vioce from hurriyat is bit of mind wobbling for me, i would like to POST an article on the issue by Dr. Angana Chatterji, which may will clear that indian media was not that "unaware" of the matter.

 

[Y2A]

Disquiet Ghosts: Mass graves in Kashmir
Dr. Angana Chatterji
09 July, 2008 Font size:
Dirt, rubble, thick grass, hillside and flatland, crowded with graves. Signifiers of military and paramilitary terror, masked from the world. Constructed by institutions of state to conceal massacre. Placed next to homes, fields, schools, an army practise range. Unknown, unmarked. Over 940 graves in a segment of Baramulla district alone. Some containing more than one cadaver. Dug by locals, coerced by the police, on village land. Bodies dragged through the night, some tortured, burnt, desecrated. Circulating mythology claims these graves uniformly house ‘foreign militants’. Exhumation and identification have not occurred in most cases. When undertaken, in sizable instances, records prove the dead to be local people, ordinary citizens, killed in fake encounters. In instances where bodies have been identified as local, non-militant and militant, it demystifies state rhetoric that rumours these persons to be ‘foreign militants’, propagating misrepresentation that the demand for self-determination is prevailingly external. Mourned, cared for, by locals, as ‘farz’/duty, as part of an obligation,
stated repeatedly, to ‘azadi’. ‘Azadi’/freedom to determine self and future.
On 18 and 20 June, the International People’s Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian-administered Kashmir (‘Tribunal’, convened in April 2008, International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian-Administered Kashmir) visited Baramulla and Kupwara district to conduct ongoing fact-finding and verification related to mass graves at the behest of local communities.
The team comprised of Tribunal Conveners Advocate Parvez Imroz and myself, a staff member, and camera crew.
On 18 June, we visited Raja Mohalla in Uri, Baramulla district, 110 kilometres from Srinagar, where 22 graves were constructed between 1996-1997. Then to Quazipora, where 13 bodies were stated as buried in seven graves in 1991. Then we travelled to Chehal, Bimyar village, Uri, holding 235 graves. We re-met Atta Mohammad, gravedigger and caretaker at Chehal, who testified that these bodies, brought by the police, primarily
after dark, were buried between 2002-2006. Atta Mohammad said that the bodies appear in his nightmares, each in graphic, gruesome detail. Terrorised by the task forced upon him, his nights are bereft of sleep. Then we travelled to Mir Mohalla, Kichama, Sheeri, to the main graveyard with 105 graves, stated to hold about 225-250 bodies, buried between 1994-2003, and a smaller graveyard, with nine graves, adjacent to a sign proclaiming it a ‘Model Village’.
On 20 June, we visited the northern district of Kupwara. On the way we witnessed army convoys, including one of 21+ vehicles. Created in 1979 through the forking of Baramulla district, approximately 5,000 feet above sea level, Kupwara borders the Line-of-Control to the north and west. Between Shamsbari and Pirpanchal mountain ranges, it is one of the most heavily militarised zones, about 95 kilometres from Srinagar. Kupwara houses six army camps, as military and paramilitary forces occupy significant land. Seven interrogation centres have been operational with police stations functioning as additional interrogation cells. In Handwara town, a watchtower surveils and regulates movement.
In Kupwara, we visited Trehgam village, holding 85-100 graves, 24 of which are identified, and spoke with community members. Trehgam was home to Maqbool Bhat (b. 1938), founding figure of the Jammu Kashmir National Liberation Front. Acknowledged as Shaheed-e-Kashmir, Bhat is labelled a ‘terrorist’ by certain segments of India. He sought to unite the territories of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir into a secular, sovereign, democratic state. Bhat was sentenced to death by the Supreme Court of India and hanged in Tihar jail in New Delhi on 11 February 1984. Maqbool Bhat’s nephew, Parvaiz Ahmad Bhat, reminded us that Habibullah Bhat, Bhat’s brother, was the first case of enforced disappearance before 1989.
After Trehgam, we reached Regipora around 3 pm and stopped for lunch. There, two persons introduced themselves as Special Branch Kashmir (SBK) and Counter Intelligence Kashmir (CIK) personnel, and questioned the Tribunal staff member about our visit. After responding, we proceeded to the ‘martyrs’ graveyard’ holding 258 graves, constructed in 1995. This burial ground is meticulously ordered, each grave numbered. The body of a 20-25 year old youth was buried in the first week of June, reportedly killed in an encounter in Bamhama village.
We stopped at a roadside tea stall to speak with local people about the graves. Four intelligence personnel questioned us, asking we disclose information about those we had visited. Soon, four additional SBK and CIK personnel joined the questioning. Other intelligence personnel made phone calls. By then, about 12 intelligence personnel gathered. Following further questioning we proceeded toward Srinagar. A car followed at a distance.
We detoured to Sadipora, Kandi, where locals stated that around 20 bodies were buried. The graveyard, overrun with wild flowers, is part of a larger ground used during festivals, including Id. Two of four bodies, killed in a fake encounter on 29 April 2007, were exhumed, identified as locals, contrary to police records stating them to be ‘Pakistani terrorists’. Saidipora holds Riyaz Ahmad Bhat’s grave, killed in the encounter, age 19. Police records, per the First Information Report, declared him a ‘Pakistani terrorist’. Riyaz Bhat was identified by Javeed Ahmed, his brother, as a resident of Kalashpora, Srinagar, based on police photographs from the time of death. Ahmed travelled with the Tribunal to take us to his brother’s grave. On his knees Javeed attempted to clear the thick brush. Later, in Srinagar, he testified that Bhat had never been involved in militancy. Javeed spoke of grieving, of imprisonment and beatings at the police station. He asked how he could have saved his brother from death.
After Sadiapora, we were stopped at Shangargund, Sopore, at about 6.40 pm, by three persons in civilian clothing. They forcibly boarded the car. We were ordered to the Sopore Police Station. There we were asked to detail our identity, employment, the purpose of the visit, and to hand over tapes which, the police alleged, contained ‘dangerous’ and ‘objectionable’ material. We stated that the Tribunal, a public process, was undertaking its work peaceably, lawfully, with informed consent, and that we had not visited restricted areas. We stated that the police had no lawful reason to seize the tapes. We were detained for 16 minutes.
After several calls to senior police persons, we were released. A red Indica car followed us to Sangrama. At Srinagar, Intelligence personnel were stationed at my hotel. On 21 June, I was followed from the hotel to the Tribunal’s office in Lal Chowk, where about 8 personnel were stationed the entire day questioning anyone who entered or left the office.
My mother, residing in Calcutta, received a query regarding my whereabouts from the District Magistrate’s Office. I was followed to the Srinagar airport on 22 June, and questioned, asked if I possessed dual citizenship. I do not. I am a citizen of India and a permanent resident of the United States. On 24 June, I arrived in Bhubaneswar to submit a statement to the Commission of Inquiry on the Kandhamal violence against Christians in 2007 in Orissa. There too, Central Intelligence officials persistently inquired after me. In April, after announcing the Tribunal, I was stopped and harassed at Immigration while leaving India for the United States, and again on my re-entry in June.
The targeting of the Tribunal has not abated since the Amarnath issue erupted around 23 June. The volatile proposal to transfer 800 kanals of land to the Shrine Board, revoked on 01 July, was supported by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and Hindu militant Shiv Sena. Despite the Sena’s recent call to Hindus to form suicide squads, it faces no sanctions from the state. Kashmiris of diverse ethnicities and religions dissented the Amarnath land transfer. Community leaders in Kashmir explained that their stance against the proposal is not in dissent to Hindu pilgrims, but a repressive state. During the Amarnath land transfer protests, civil disobedience paralleled that of 1989, amid severe repression. On 30 June, in curfew-like conditions, we met with two families in Srinagar who narrated that the police had shot dead their sons. At one place, in the old city, while the men took the body for burial late at night, the police returned and destroyed property and molested women.
On 30 June, at about 10:10 pm, Parvez Imroz and his family were attacked at home by state forces, who fired three shots and hurled a grenade while exiting when family and community interrupted their attempts. Neighbours reported seeing one large armoured vehicle and two Gypsy cars, and men in CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force) and SOG (Special Operations Group) uniforms. This murder attempt is an escalation in the forms of state-led intimidation and targeting aimed at Advocate Imroz. It is an attempt to make the Tribunal vulnerable and instil fear in us in an attempt to stop this process.
On 01 July, we met at Khurram Parvez’s home before addressing a press conference. Outside, jeeps with plainclothes men continued their observation, accompanied by a jeep with armed men in uniform.
Later, Advocate Imroz, Khurram Parvez, Advocate Mihir Desai, and I went to the police station to lodge a First Information Report. We were not permitted to do so. For security reasons, Parvez Imroz is not staying at home. Khurram Parvez remains under surveillance.
I must allow for distance before revisiting the graves. On 04 July, sitting on a plane at Delhi International Airport, waiting to take-off, I received a phone call on my India mobile, caller ‘Unknown’: “Madam,we know you’re leaving. Think wisely before coming back”.
Orders to unnerve the leadership of the International Tribunal by the Government of India’s intelligence and security administration appear to be generated at the highest levels. The general policy of surveillance should not be used as a pretext to create obstacles for our work. As India argues for a seat on the United Nations Security Council, the Government of India, as ‘Frontline Defenders’ stated in their recent alert supporting the Tribunal, must adhere to its own repeated commitment to peace in Kashmir and international conventions and laws. It must uphold democratic governance and safeguard human rights.
Advocate Imroz, Khurram Parvez, other members of the Tribunal team, have long experienced injustices for their extraordinary work as human rights defenders. A lauded human rights lawyer, Parvez Imroz has survived two, now three, assassination attempts, the first from militants. Since 2005, his passport has been denied. Khurram Parvez lost his leg in a landmine incident. Gautam Navlakha and Zahir-ud-Din have been intimidated and threatened, as has Mihir Desai, in their larger work. It is noteworthy that the Government of India is adding intimidation to the death and rape threats delivered me by Hindu extremists for human rights work.
The work of the Tribunal is an act of conscience and accountability, fraught with the charge of complex and violent histories. Its mandate, in documenting Kashmir’s present, is to chronicle the fabric of militarisation, status of human rights, and legal, political, militaristic ‘states of exception’. The Tribunal’s work will continue through the coming months. We have received extensive solidarity from civil society; victims/survivors, at street corners, from villagers, ordinary citizens, those committed to justice. Each life in Kashmir has a story to tell. The subjugation of civil society has produced magnificent ethical resistance. The state cannot combat every individual.
Nearly two decades of genocidal violence record 70,000+ dead, 8,000+ disappeared, 60,000+ tortured, 50,000+ orphaned,incalculable sexualised and gendered violence, a very high rate of people with suicidal behaviours; hundreds of thousands displaced; violations of promises, laws, conventions, agreements, treaties; mass graves; mile upon mile of barbed wire; fear, suppression of varied demands for participation to determine Kashmir’s future, spirals of violence, protracted silence. Last year, Kashmir’s only hospital with services for mental health received 68,000 patients. Profound social, economic, and psychological consequences,and an intense isolation have impacted private, public, and everyday life. It has generated brutal resistance on the part of groups that have engaged in violent militancy. Repressions of struggles for self-determination and international
policies/politics have yielded severe consequences, creating a juncture at which the failure of governance intersects with a culture of grief.
Torture survivors, non-militants and former militants, that I met with testified to the sadism of the forces. Reportedly, a man, hung upside down, had petrol injected through his anus. Water-boarding,mutilation, rape of women, children, and men, starvation, psychological torture.
Brutalised, ‘healed’, to be brutalised again. An eagle tattoo on the arm of a man was reportedly identified by an army officer as a symbol of Pakistan-held Azad Kashmir, even as the man clarified the tattoo was from his childhood. The skin containing it was burned. The officer, the man stated, said: “When you look at this, think of azadi”. A mother, reportedly asked to watch her daughter’s rape by army personnel, pleaded for her release. They refused. She pleaded that she could not watch, asking to be sent out of the room or be killed. We were told that the soldier pointed a gun to her forehead, stating he would grant her wish, and shot her before they proceeded to rape the daughter. We also spoke with persons violated by militants. One man stated that people’s experiences with the reprehensible atrocities of militancy do not imply the abdication of their desire for self-determination. This, he stated, is a mistake the state makes, conflating militancy with the intent for self-determination.
He clarified that neither is self-determination an indication of allegiance to Pakistan, largely to the contrary.
The continuing and daunting presence of military and paramilitary forces, increased and sophisticated surveillance, merges with pervasive and immense suffering and anger of people in villages, towns, and cities across Kashmir. Parallel to the presence of 500,000 troops and commitment to nuclearisation, official figures state that there are about 450 militants in Kashmir and that demilitarisation is underway. In March 2007, three government committees on demilitarisation resolved that the ‘low intensity war continues’, placing in limbo troop reduction and the repealment of draconian laws -- the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958, imposed in Jammu and Kashmir in December 1990, and the Disturbed Areas Act, 1976, enacted in 1992. Local realities reflect that these laws and the military seek to control the general population with impunity.
Kashmir is increasingly defined as a ‘post-conflict’ zone. ‘Post-conflict’ is not the propagation of tourism toward an overt display of nationalism. Post-conflict is a space in which to heal, reflect, and enable civil society participation in determining peace and justice. The graves speak to those that listen. Those haunted by history are called to remember.

(Dr Angana Chatterji is associate professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the California Institute of Integral Studies and co-convener of the International People’s Tribunal in Kashmir. A shorter version of the article appeared in Tehelka magazine’s recent issue).

source: The Daily Etalaat Srinagar - Disquiet Ghosts: Mass graves in Kashmir

 

[brahmastra]

These bodies are may be of your so called freedom fighters whom you sent to the kargil and when we shot their @ss you denied to take them back. And with no other option we had to send them down the earth.

 

[EjazR]

Rising Kashmir, Daily Newspaper, Srinagar Jammu and Kashmir - 30 CRPF companies withdrawn, 5 Police battalions to be raised: DGP

Srinagar, August 23: Ruling out immediate release of detained separatist leaders, Director General Police, Kuldeep Khoda on Sunday said 30 companies of CRPF have been pulled out from Central and South Kashmir while New Delhi has agreed to raise five more battalions of police.
Quoting Khoda, local news agency KNS, said separatists could not be released since they disturb daily lives of people.
The DGP said if separatists stop annoying people then government could rethink whether to release them or not.
He said 30 companies of CRPF have been pulled back while 18 new companies of Jammu Kashmir Armed Police and IRP have been deployed in Srinagar and Baramulla.
DGP said police had committed some mistakes during anti-insurgency operations which lead to law and order problem. He said the authorities have now decided to keep separate 18 companies of police to look after law and order problem.
He said centre has agreed to their request of raising more battalions of police. Khooa said to begin with, five more battalions of police would be raised.

 

[garibnawaz]

Omar has shown hopes. Lets see if he delivers.

GB

 

[asq]

These bodies are may be of your so called freedom fighters whom you sent to the kargil and when we shot their @ss you denied to take them back. And with no other option we had to send them down the earth.

What a shame bra.

You talk about dead people so lightly as if they were not worthy of being humans.

 

[asq]

Omar has shown hopes. Lets see if he delivers.

GB

It is not a hope it is an Indian trick to continue with fake encounters by police as Indian police did in east Punjab.

We know it too well to believe it.

A jackal cannot change his style even if it darns the cheetah spots.