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This report while illustrating the patterns of violence through individual case studies, is directly concerned with identifying the structure, forms and tactics of violence of the Indian State in Jammu and Kashmir. How did/does the Indian State perpetrate this violence? What precisely is the structure, physical and institutional, through which weapons, ammunition, soldiers, officers, camps and battalions inflict violence on the people of Jammu and Kashmir? Where is the control? The driving motivation of this exercise is, as has always been: Responsibility. Who do we hold responsible for the individual and collected acts of violence?

In each and every case of human rights violation, there is a connection between different parts of the larger apparatus – what we call the “structure” - and the individual victim/crime. The torture of a civilian in a camp by army personnel is not disconnected from the army hierarchy, and nor is it disconnected from the other forces and agencies operating in the area. Past work has been unable to comprehensively capture the various actors connected to the crime. It has been unable to present the web of actors that work together, with clear lines of command, to inflict violence in an individual case. This report seeks to actually bring in focus the patterns, scale and structure of violence. This report is a beginning of an effort to understand this structure and how it operates.

The cases documented in this report may constitute crimes of Genocide, Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes under international law. The relevance of this documentation is to therefore begin collecting evidence and presenting it in a way that will enable future international processes to understand the violence in Jammu and Kashmir and the structure responsible for it. 

Overall this report documents the extra-judicial killings of 1080 persons and enforced disappearances of 172 persons and numerous cases of torture and sexual violence. In Chapter 4 the report has focused only 333 cases of human rights violations with 198 case studies on extra-judicial killings [amounting to a total of 415 persons killed] and 73 case studies on enforced disappearances [amounting to a total of 89 disappeared persons]. The remaining cases are carried in Annexures 2 and 4 of this report.

Chapter 1 of the report lays down the structure of the Indian army and the BSF from the highest level – army headquarters and Director General, BSF - all the way down to the Brigade/Sector level in the case of the army, and Battalion level in the case of the BSF. This layout allows us to trace the theoretical line that connects an individual victim and perpetrator in any neighborhood in Kashmir all the way to the army and BSF headquarters in New Delhi. This chapter also estimates the strength of the armed forces in Jammu and Kashmir from a conservative 6, 56,638 to 7,50,981 [depending on the number of Battalions considered as the base for each Brigade formation]. Government of India and its various functionaries have contested claims that Jammu and Kashmir is the world's most militarized zone, with approximately 7,00,000 forces. This Chapter through its calculations and estimates is an attempt to understand and inform the public in a context where little information is available. In the past the Indian State has always dismissed these estimates as an exaggeration. This is also an opportunity for the Indian State and Indian army to specifically dispute these claims. It is pertinent to note that in the full edged wars being waged in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the military deployment is far less than the level of militarization in Jammu and Kashmir. In no other context of warfare have military personnel operated with the absolute impunity that has been seen in Jammu and Kashmir where troops are supposedly operating for peace keeping duties. With the structure laid down, we select two Brigade level formations [referred to as Sectors by Indian army] – Khanabal camp and Tapper camp. Each is headed by a Brigadier who in turn controls numerous Battalions and camps. This chapter proceeds to look at the impact and connection between the men in control at the Brigade level and the violence on the ground. This is a template of study that can be reproduced, with the assistance of the structure laid out, in any area of Jammu and Kashmir. The heart of this investigation is:

What is the culpability of the Brigade level officers and their superiors? Through victim and insider testimony, we seek to answer this question. The evidence and analysis prima facie suggests that the army was and continues to be in effective control and command of these areas. In fact, in the 1990s, the police and local administration were rendered defunct by the military authorities. Finally, and this requires further investigation, there is evidence to suggest that beyond command responsibility, individual criminal responsibility for the actual commission of crimes would also rest at the Brigade level. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that the knowledge, responsibility and control on the ground went beyond the Brigade level, for example in the Islamabad study, even up to the Victor Force Headquarters in Awantipora [Division level formation], which is controlled by a Major General ranking officer.

Chapter 2 of the report understands operation of this structure of State through specific spectacles of “mass violence”. Five case studies, comprising eight different events/crimes including extra-judicial killing, torture and sexual violence, and a range of perpetrators [army, paramilitary, police, government gunmen] illustrate the extent of violence and the intended effect of this violence on communities. Once again, in keeping with the core intention of this report, this calculated violence cannot be understood as a consequence of individual actions independent and disconnected of the larger structure of violence. Further, this chapter also follows the cases through the Indian criminal justice system – from first information reports at the police station to the Supreme Court of India. The violence, obfuscation and impunity at every step illuminates the system at work and reiterates the argument that there can be no justice from the same judicial system that is a part of the larger apparatus of occupation and employs mass violence as a strategic tool of political control.

Chapter 3 of the report highlights a mechanism that specifically supports the military structure of violence: court-martial. Created to address disciplinary issues within the army, the court-martial has been used to effectively stall any public, transparent civilian process for justice. Widely accepted internationally to be an inappropriate judicial remedy in armed conflict, the court-martial in Jammu and Kashmir is found to be opaque, impossible to access, against principles of natural justice, and biased. In its functioning, result and impact, it serves as a tool for the armed forces to protect their own. Given the Indian army history of interference and abuse of the civilian judicial process, there can be no expectation from the opaque court-martial process.

Chapter 4 of the report presents and analyzes 333 case studies of enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, sexual violence and torture with 972 identified alleged perpetrators. The actual numbers of alleged perpetrators in these 333 cases would necessarily be higher given the larger structure of violence within which these individual perpetrators operate. The case studies reiterate the lack of any will to provide justice. Despite overwhelming evidence, the Indian judiciary and executive [supported by the legislature through laws such as AFSPA] do not allow for fair and independent processes of investigation or prosecution. The list of alleged perpetrators, their ranks, units and area of operations strongly suggests that the crimes listed within this report occurred across Jammu and Kashmir, by the various armed forces and police, and at various levels of the hierarchy of each of these armed forces and police. The Indian State narrative of human rights violations being mere aberrations is not substantiated on consideration of these cases. Crimes in Jammu and Kashmir have not been committed despite the Indian State but because of it. The structures of the Indian State, including the Government of Jammu and Kashmir, must be accused of not just standing by while human rights violations have taken place, but they carry a far higher culpability. They must be accused of willfully putting in place structures specifically meant to carry out these crimes. Some statistics reveal a horrifying picture. From the 333 cases emerges a list of 972 individual perpetrators, which include 464 army personnel, 161 paramilitary personnel, 158 Jammu and Kashmir Police personnel and 189 Government gunmen. The designations of some of these alleged perpetrators points to a deep institutional involvement of the Indian State in crimes in Jammu and Kashmir. Among the alleged perpetrators are one Major General and seven Brigadiers of the Indian Army besides 31 Colonels, four Lieutenant Colonels, 115 Majors and 40 Captains. Add to this, 54 senior ofcials of the paramilitary forces and the following Jammu and Kashmir Police personnel: a retired Director General of the Jammu and Kashmir Police, a present Additional Director General of Police, two Inspector Generals, two Deputy Inspector Generals, six Senior Superintendents of Police, and three Superintendents of Police. This report establishes that the counter-insurgency grid, including military, police and intelligence agencies, have used the techniques of “dirty war” to neutralize the popular resistance. The report reveals how India armed and used Kashmiri civilians to combat the armed insurgency. This was also aimed at fragmenting the society, including along ethnoreligious, linguistic and regional lines. Having served the interests of the Indian State many of these operatives were neutralized and killed.

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