more then 2000 Kashmir unmarked graves:Aljazeera

[khanz4996]

Inquiry confirms Kashmir unmarked graves
Report says more than 2,000 bodies found buried in unmarked graves, believed to be victims of the separatist revolt.
Last Modified: 21 Aug 2011 20:52


Indian authorities deny human rights violations in Kashmir and say they probe all such reports and punish the guilty

More than 2,000 bodies have been found buried in several unmarked graves in Kashmir, believed to be victims of the divided region's separatist revolt, an Indian human rights commission said in a report.

"At 38 places visited in north Kashmir, there were 2,156 unidentified dead bodies buried in unmarked graves," the inquiry report published on Saturday by the Indian government's Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission (J&KSHRC) said.

The graves were found in dozens of villages near the Line of Control, the military line dividing Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

Nearly 50,000 people have been killed in mainly Muslim Kashmir since a revolt against New Delhi's rule began in 1989.

The report, which comes after a three-year inquiry by an 11-member team, is the first official acknowledgement that civilians killed in the two-decade conflict may have been buried in unmarked graves.

It stopped short of confirming that suspicion, long alleged by rights groups, but said: "there is every possibility that ... various unmarked graves at 38 places of north Kashmir may contain the dead bodies of locals".

Indian authorities have consistently denied systematic human rights violations in Kashmir and say they probe all such reports and punish the guilty.

'Thousands disappeared'

India and Pakistan have fought two wars since 1947 for control of the territory, which is divided between them. India accuses Pakistan of arming and training separatist fighters, but Pakistan says it only offers moral and diplomatic support for their cause.


Click here for more of our coverage on Kashmir
More than 68,000 people have been killed in the uprising against Indian rule. Most have been civilians.
Rights groups have said some 8,000 people have disappeared, and accused government forces of staging gun battles to cover up killings.

The groups also say suspected separatist fighters have been arrested and never heard from again.

The state government has countered that most of the missing were likely Kashmiri youths who crossed into Pakistan for weapons training.

In 2008, a rights group reported unmarked graves in 55 villages across the northern regions of Baramulla, Bandipore and Handwara, after which researchers and other groups reported finding thousands of single and mass graves without markers.

Indian officials set up the commission to investigate and also began a separate police investigation, the findings of which have yet to be released.

The commission's 17-page report also urged DNA profiling to identify the bodies, saying the matter should be "investigated thoroughly by an impartial agency'.'

The head of a local rights group welcomed the report as vindicating its research into the graves. "Security agencies accused us of maligning the image of the armed forces,'' said Pervez Imroz of the International People's Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice.

Now, "we will seek judicial intervention if the government fails to implement the report's recommendations'.'
Inquiry confirms Kashmir unmarked graves - Central & South Asia - Al Jazeera English

Kashmir unmarked graves hold thousands of bodies

Three-year inquiry says remains of 2,156 people found along Indian side of disputed border

Jason Burke in Delhi
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 21 August 2011 20.32 BST
Article history

An Indian soldier looks out across the line of control dividing Kashmir. Photograph: Getty Images
More than 2,000 corpses, believed to be victims of Kashmir's long-running insurgency, have been found buried in dozens of unmarked graves in the divided region, an Indian government human rights commission report has said.

The graves were found in dozens of villages on the Indian side of the line of control, the de facto border that has split the former kingdom between India and Pakistan for nearly 40 years.

"At 38 places visited in north Kashmir, there were 2,156 unidentified dead bodies buried in unmarked graves," the inquiry found.

Though campaigners and community leaders in Kashmir have long said such graves exist – and often provided extensive documentary evidence to back up their claims – the report is the first official statement confirming their existence.

Released over the weekend, its publication is the result of a three-year inquiry by an 11-member team led by a senior police official.

Up to 70,000 people died in the 22-year insurgency in Kashmir, which pitted armed separatist groups, many backed by Pakistan, against New Delhi's rule.

The worst of the violence occurred during the mid-1990s when a vicious struggle pitted thousands of militants against Indian security forces supplemented by locally-hired irregulars. Human rights abuses were routine with militants intimidating local communities and killing so-called spies while Indian authorities resorted to abductions, torture and extra-judicial executions on a wide scale. The graves appear to date from this period.

Kashmir is India's only Muslim-majority state and the struggle rapidly took on a religious dimension. The victims in the mass graves had been buried by local communities.

Police originally described the bodies to villagers as "unidentified militants". This claim is disputed by the report, local media said , which also calls for a forensic investigation involving DNA identification of remains.

Investigators spoke to former police officials, village heads, clerics, gravediggers and cemetery caretakers, the Indian Express newspaper reported.

Though violence has declined dramatically in recent years, in part due to a peace process between India and Pakistan, clashes still occur. On Saturday, Indian soldiers shot dead 12 separatist militants trying to cross from Pakistan into the disputed region. An Indian officer was also killed in the incident.

One frequent accusation is that Indian security forces in Kashmir have killed innocent civilians in staged gun battles and passed them off as separatist militants to earn rewards and promotions. One such alleged incident last year provoked rioting throughout most of the summer.

This summer, however, has proved relatively quiet with tourists returning to the region.

Indian authorities have consistently denied systematic human rights violations in Kashmir and say they probe all such reports and punish the guilty.

A US diplomatic cable leaked by WikiLeaks and published by the Guardian last December revealed a briefing to the US embassy in Delhi by representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross which described continuing torture and arbitrary detention by security forces.

The Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons, which estimates around 10,000 people have gone missing in the past 20 years, says many may have ended up in these unmarked graves. "We appeal to international human rights groups and Indian authorities to identify the people buried," said Parveena Ahanger, founder and chair of the group. International human rights groups have also repeatedly asked the Indian authorities to investigate the unmarked graves.
Kashmir unmarked graves hold thousands of bodies | World news | The Guardian

Over 2,000 found buried in Kashmir's unmarked graves - report


HE REALITY OF INDIA THE INDIAN BRUTALITY

 

[Roybot]

Already posted. Like a million times.

 

[khanz4996]

Already posted. Like a million times.

YEAH But not with the westren news media reports like aljazeera gaurdian.its not about the post its about indian state terrorism on the unarmed people of kashmir.you cant throw sand in to westren people eyes for long then you did

 

[jdme]

Yep. Discussed to death, no pun intended.

---------- Post added at 08:43 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:43 AM ----------

YEAH But not with the westren news media reports like aljazeera gaurdian.its not about the post its about indian state terrorism on the unarmed people of kashmir.you cant throw sand in to westren people eyes for long then you did

Rules still apply.

 

[OrionHunter]

Ooops! Double post. Deleted!

 

[khanz4996]

Yep. Discussed to death, no pun intended.

---------- Post added at 08:43 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:43 AM ----------



Yeh, yeh, rules still apply.

no respect for the faimly of the missing????

 

[OrionHunter]

Already posted. Like a million times.

Wrong! This is the gazillionth time!! I'm heading for the beer bar as this is getting on my frayed nerves!! Yawn!

 

[jdme]

no respect for the faimly of the missing????

I have respect for those who died in recent Japanese typhoon too. But we cannot post same thing again and again or you think these deserves extra respect every 5th post?

 

[Drawn_Sword_of_God]

Al jazeera, from what ive seen they are somewhat respected by a few indians here. But oh well it must be another conspiracy theory by ISI

 

[harshad]

terrorists should not be burried in india,shame that there is a burial site for these people in kashmir

 

[jetti]

this could easily be family of hindus killed by militants.

 

[notsuperstitious]

no respect for the faimly of the missing????

India is doing DNA analyses of the unknown people's remains. I hope Pakistan India can cooperate and we are able to return the remains of the foreign fighters back to where they belong and the same for any local militants. The dead must be accorded full respect. But its going to take more than just India to achieve.

 

[harpoon]

Wow so much concern from Pakistanis who essentially caused this mess.

 

[unicorn]

Digging for truth in Kashmir's unmarked graves
By Giles Hewitt (AFP)


SRINAGAR — The last time Bilkees Manzoor saw her father was 10 years ago on a snowy January night when a dozen soldiers took him from their family home in Srinagar, capital of Indian Kashmir.

"They said he was needed for questioning and would be released in a couple of hours. We never saw him again," she said.
Rights groups say as many as 8,000 people, mostly young men, have been "disappeared" by the security forces in Indian Kashmir since an armed insurgency against Indian rule erupted in the Muslim-majority region in 1989.

Manzoor insists her father, who ran a small medical business, had no links to any militant group and she has never been told why he was taken into custody.

For years, she and many others have campaigned to find out what happened to their missing relatives. Now, for the first time, an answer may be in reach.

Last month, Kashmir's State Human Rights Commission surprised everyone -- not least the Indian authorities -- when it submitted a report detailing the existence of 2,730 bodies lying in unmarked graves in northern Kashmir.

Crucially the report said 574 bodies had been identified as those of local residents -- a finding that directly challenged the long-held official insistence that any unmarked graves could only be those of foreign militants.

The commission recommended DNA testing to determine the identity of the remaining 2,156 bodies and the creation of an independent body to monitor the process.

The graves are not mass graves of the sort uncovered after the Balkans conflict, but individual plots in rural town graveyards.
The report marked the first time a state-funded body has formally acknowledged their existence.

"It's a big victory. They have taken one step, a big step. We can only hope they take more," she said.
"I have the right to know if my father's alive and where he is, or if he's dead where he's buried."

The state government has yet to endorse the commission's findings, but in the state legislature last week, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah promised DNA tests would be carried out.

"We are not here to conceal the truth," Abdullah said.

Allegations of rape, torture and extrajudicial killings have been levelled at the security forces -- army, paramilitaries and police -- in Kashmir for years, and detailed in reports by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

But the few cases taken up by the judicial system have gone nowhere, largely because of special emergency powers that require the government in New Delhi to sanction the prosecution of military personnel.

Bashir ud-Din, the chairman of the State Human Rights Commission, admits he has no way of knowing whether the recommendations of his report will be properly implemented.

"We have done what we can. Now it is up to others. If they don't want to do anything, what can I do? My conscience is clear," the retired High Court judge told AFP in his office in Srinagar.

Until now, he said, official inaction had been the default response to serious charges of rights abuses levelled against the security forces.
"The fact is that those who matter, at the state or central level, have yet to be sensitive enough to respond in a way that would at least instil some confidence ... that the system is there to bring wrongdoers to justice," he said.
The old adage of the truth being the first casualty of any conflict rings particularly true in Kashmir, a region of striking Himalayan beauty divided between India and Pakistan and the trigger for two wars between the South Asian rivals.
The official Indian view on the armed separatist movement is that of a largely Pakistan-sponsored insurgency fuelled by "jihadist" militants from as far afield as Afghanistan, Chechnya and Tajikistan.

The counter-narrative has India's only Muslim-majority state run as a giant army camp, where the security forces act with total impunity to violently repress Kashmiris' desire for self-determination.

Estimates for the number killed since 1989 vary from 40,000 to 70,000 and the breakdown of those figures -- militants, security personnel, civilians -- is bitterly contested.
Kashmiri human rights campaigner Khurram Parvez says the state commission report is the "biggest breakthrough" of the past 20 years, but he also believes its findings are just the "tip of the iceberg".

His organisation, the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society, claims it has proof of thousands more unmarked graves in other areas of Kashmir.

"But for us, figures are immaterial," he told AFP.
"We are not fighting to prove figures. We just want the state to acknowledge the phenomenon of enforced disappearances and begin delivering justice."