Disclaimer: This report (by a UN rapporteur) repeats and amplifies certain Indian state propaganda on Kashmir.  It uses terminology and analysis deployed by Indian disinformation efforts which are inconsistent with factual reality and, among other things, serve to obscure actual violations and promote impunity for those violations.

As a result of these (Babri Masjid related) events, relations between Hindus and Muslims have reportedly deteriorated in several parts of India. In the predominantly Muslim State of Kashmir, for example, persecution of the Hindu minority, and particularly of representatives of the Kashmiri Pandits, by Muslim fundamentalists is said to have increased. Since 1990 some 250,000 people have reportedly had to flee from their homes and seek refuge in makeshift camps in northern India. Their deserted homes are said to have been bombarded with stones and mortar shells by Muslim extremists. According to an investigation published in India Today on 28 February 1993, about 50 Hindu temples were damaged, and 2 of them, the temples of Shailputri and Bhairon Nath in Baramulla, were 90 per cent destroyed, but most were repaired quickly within a few days, contrary to some press reports.

One very recent report claims that the Moslem Hazratbal Shrine of Srinagar has been under siege since 16 October 1993 by a force of more than 10,000 Indian military and paramilitary personnel. They are alleged to have committed acts of vandalism in the main prayer area of this venerated complex, comprising a mosque, library and theological college, whose treasures are said to include the hair of the Prophet Muhammad. It is reported that, following two earlier attacks, this place of pilgrimage was stormed in February 1992 by Indian troops, who allegedly desecrated the site and set fire to the library. Copies of the Koran and some 16,000 books were reportedly destroyed.

Response from India:

In Kashmir, the systematic religious-based extremism by terrorist elements has resulted in an exodus of 250,000 members of other religious communities from the Kashmir valley to other parts of India. The atrocities perpetrated by the extremists have been wanton and indiscriminate and have spared none. The Hazratbal incident referred to by you was indeed the culmination of a series of crises planned by the militants and their mentors across the border to foment communal passions by attempts at arson and the occupation of no less than seven of the Major religious shrines in the Kashmir valley between the middle of September and up to the end of November this year. Thus, contrary to the allegations made in the annex to your letter, it was on receiving information that there was a concerted criminal conspiracy to desecrate the Hazratbal shrine and to tamper with the holy relic of the Prophet, that the Government got the area of the shrine being cordoned off and appealed to the militants to come out and surrender and also to allow the devotees, including women and children held hostage by the extremists, to come out of the mosque of their own free will. The thrust of the action by the security forces was to protect the shrine by appealing through patient negotiations to the militants to return to the path of reason and not to engage them in an armed encounter. During the month-long siege, exemplary restraint was shown by the security forces in the face of continuing provocation and unreasonable demands by the militants and their supporters outside who sought to create a confrontationist situation by playing up the emotive elements of the incident. Despite the intransigence of the militants, the Government of India refused to be provoked and left no avenue unexplored for a peaceful solution of the Hazratbal situation. Throughout the crisis, complete transparency was maintained. Evidence of the strength of the Indian democratic institutions and the Government’s commitment to ensuring protection of the fundamental rights of its citizens was shown in the latter’s adherence to the State High Court’s and Supreme Court's directives to provide food and humanitarian assistance to those within the shrine. The peaceful solution of the crisis despite grave provocation is indicative of the extent of the Government’s commitment to respect the sentiments of the people and to preserve the sanctity of the shrine. This stands out in marked contrast to similar situations in some ether countries where force has been readily used in order to evict the militants occupying religious shrines. 

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