As regards action taken against officers in Punjab and in Jammu and Kashmir, the Special Rapporteur would also appreciate learning which such actions were in response to acts within the Special Rapporteur’s mandate. The Special Rapporteur is also sensitive to the "ferocity of the terrorism" faced by the Government of India in those territories. He understands that the Government of India is not seeking to invoke this serious problem to condone torture. The Special Rapporteur also looks forward to receiving information on the success of the new National Human Rights Commission in addressing this problem

By letter dated 9 August 1993 the Special Rapporteur informed the Government of reports he had received indicating that criminal suspects, as well as persons detained for political reasons, are routinely tortured in police stations in order to extract confessions or information and that many detainees have died as a result.

The Special Rapporteur also received information according to which there has been a pattern of human rights violations committed by members of the security forces in the course of their operations in Jammu and Kashmir. These include reports of brutal torture and rape by members of the security  forces,often in retaliation for attacks by Kashmiri militant groups on them. Torture is reportedly used as a means of extracting information from detainees, coercing confessions or punishing persons believed sympathetic to the guerrilla forces. Every government force operating in Kashmir, including the Indian Army and India’s federal paramilitary forces, the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and the Border Security Force (BSF), has its own interrogation centres in Kashmir. Detainees are reportedly first interrogated by the detaining security force for periods of time which may range from several hours to several weeks. During this time the detainee is not produced before a court or given access to anyone outside the interrogation centre.

It was also reported that security personnel routinely ignore procedural safeguards when taking persons into custody. Although Indian law requires that everyone taken into custody must be produced before a magistrate within 24 hours, in fact detainees are rarely produced at all. Prohibitions and safeguards against torture in the Indian Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure, which prohibit the use of coerced confessions and prescribe inquiries into deaths in custody and prison terms for officers guilty of torture, are also routinely disregarded. Security personnel responsible for torture in Kashmir have reportedly never been held criminally liable for their actions.

It was further reported that the use of rape is common in Kashmir as a weapon against women suspected of being sympathetic to or related to alleged militants; or as a form of retaliation against civilians believed to be sympathetic to the militants. The authorities have rarely investigated charges of rape by security forces and those which were investigated did not result in criminal prosecutions. Incidents of this kind have been reported, for example, in Chak Saidapora, near Shopian, district Pulwama; Haran, near Srinagar; and Gurihakhar, Handwara district. The individual cases referred to in the following paragraphs were transmitted to the Government.

‍