This report from FIDH summarizes the key human rights issues in Indian-Administered Kashmir since 1990. The Indian military's counter-insurgency operations were marked by excessive and disproportionate use of force. Since 1990, more than 70,000 people have been killed, more than 8,000 have been subjected to enforced disappearances, several thousands have been arrested and detained under repressive laws, and torture and other acts of inhuman and degrading treatment against protestors and detainees have been routinely used by Indian forces.
Topics: the continuing crime of enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings go unabated, torture used as a punitive measure, systematic impunity for grave crimes, mass and unmarked graves, continuation of arbitrary and administrative detentions to curb dissent, ongoing military operations threaten human rights, rights to freedom of expression, freedom of association and freedom of religion or belief curbed, surveillance, human rights defenders under threat, sexual violence used as a tool of repression, lack of safeguards placing children in danger, former militants hindered from reintegrating into society, stiuation of minorities instrumentalized by authorities
Terms: maiming, blinding, use of pellet guns, use of shotguns, use of landmines, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, lack of redress, violation of habeas corpus, attacks on human rights defenders, custodial rape, custodial torture, sexual violence, abuse of minors, minority discrimination, excessive use of force, killing of Burhan Wani, Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), mass graves
Extrajudicial killings of civilians continue to occur with alarming frequency in Jammu & Kashmir. From January 2008 to December 2018, there were 4,059 extrajudicial killings in Jammu & Kashmir, out of which 1,081 were civilians. In 2018, at least 160 civilians, 31 of whom were children, were killed - the highest number over the past decade. Nineteen civilians, including five women, were recorded to have been killed in the Kashmir Valley in 2017,11 and at least 40 civilians in 2018, in the context of military operations or clashes between Indian armed forces and armed militants.
The fate or whereabouts of the 8,000 people who have been subjected to enforced disappearance in Jammu & Kashmir have never been officially established. However, there are strong indications that a large number of these people are likely to have been buried in mass and otherwise unmarked graves. In Uri Sub-district, in northern Jammu & Kashmir, there are no less than 940 such graves.
Recommendations- Call on the Indian government to:
• Allow full and unfettered access to Jammu & Kashmir to UN bodies and representatives, foreign and domestic human rights organizations, and foreign and local journalists.
• Support calls to establish a Commission of Inquiry to investigate allegations of all human rights violations perpetrated in Jammu & Kashmir, as recommended in the report by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
• Support the establishment of a mechanism to monitor the human rights situation in Jammu & Kashmir through diplomatic missions in New Delhi and Islamabad.
March 2019
Originally published