This is communication from the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances and the UN Special Rapporteurs on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, the situation of human rights defenders, the independence of judges and lawyers, minority issues, freedom of religion or belief, the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism and the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence, among other things, concerns the continued lack of identification and preservation of unmarked single and mass burial sites in
IAJK, including the failure to adequately protect such sites and to conduct forensic investigations, in accordance with international standards, to identify the remains of individuals buried in these graves and to establish the cause, manner and circumstances of their deaths, as required for the search processes of the forcibly disappeared.
Topics: unmarked graves, mass burial sites, failure to protect, failure to investigate, enforced and involuntary disappearances
Terms: 2019 closure of State Human Rights Commission, Indian impunity, Indian failure to reply, failure to conduct independent forensic investigations, grave sites in Bramulla, Bandipora, Kupwara, Rajouri and Poonch, Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act (PSA), Jammu and Kashmir Disturbed Areas Act, Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), discrimination against Kashmiri Muslims, denial fothe right to mourn, denial of the right to seek redress, intimidation of human rights defenders, harrassment of human rights defenders, systemic restrictions of fundamental rights of Kashmiri Muslims
Between 1990 and 2009, 2,700 unmarked and mass grave sites containing more than 2,940 bodies were documented across 55 villages in the districts of
Baramulla, Bandipora and Kupwara located in Indian-administered Kashmir. Among these, 154 graves contained two bodies each and 23 were mass graves containing more than two (ranging from 3 to 17). Civil society organizations estimate that in the former Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir, 100,000 individuals have been extrajudicially killed and 8,000 individuals have been subjected to enforced disappearances in so-called staged “encounters” with State forces since 1989. A large number of the bodies buried in these unmarked and mass grave sites are believed to be victims of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, gender-based and sexual violence, torture, and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, allegedly committed by members of the Indian armed forces, paramilitary and police units. Most of the victims are reportedly civilians, mainly belonging to the Muslim minority in India. In addition, 2,717 unmarked and mass grave sites were discovered in Poonch district and 1,127 such graves in Rajouri district. The Indian Government claimed that foreign fighters were buried in these graves, but reportedly did not substantiate this claim with clear evidence.
Records were available only for 49 allegedly identified bodies of killed persons buried in the respective grave sites in Indian-administered Kashmir. The basis on which the Indian Government had classified the bodies in the unidentified burial sites as “unidentified foreign fighters” was not disclosed. Groups not affiliated with the State indicated that only one person of these identified bodies was revealed to be a local militant, seven bodies remained unidentified, and the outstanding 41 bodies were identified to be local civilians. Thirty-nine individuals of the 49 identified bodies were reported to be members of the Muslim minority in India, four were of Hindu faith, and the religious affiliation of seven individuals remains unknown.
Clandestine burial sites, often unmarked, were allegedly unprofessionally dug by locals under instructions by the Indian armed forces and Kashmiri police
next to houses, fields, and schools, on roadsides, in prayer grounds, and in forests in rural and urban areas. In cases where the number of bodies brought
by security forces for burial in a particular location exceeded the number of graves initially ordered to be prepared there, multiple bodies were reportedly buried in one grave. Land for the construction of these grave sites was reportedly forcibly expropriated.
The burial grounds are located far away from the sites where the killings are believed to have taken place, rendering it difficult for the victims' relatives to
identify the grave sites. Mourning ceremonies and the placement of gravestones or other markers of remembrance have reportedly been prohibited.
In addition, local residents who were forced to dig the clandestine graves reportedly suffer from ongoing adverse effects on their psychosocial and physical health conditions.
July 2022
Originally published
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