174 cases of killings of Kashmiri Pandits registered by the Jammu and Kashmir Police

Note that: 

• the original Article 370 of India’s Constitution was illegal (under international law) and a political compromise borne of a drawn-out negotiation between a non-representative, non-democratic, India-sanctioned government in the Indian-Administered Jammu and Kashmir and the Government of India 
• the Government of India had historically used Article 370 of India’s Constitution to implement the inverse of what was purportedly intended by Article 370, namely to make Jammu and Kashmir an inferior, constitutionally subordinate, subservient region lacking territorial integrity rather than a privileged, constitutionally separate, fully autonomous state with territorial integrity and extraordinary powers over its own affairs.

Pursuant to this order, the Government of India imposed India’s national goods-and-services tax regime to Indian-Administered Jammu and Kashmir in contrvention of international law, its treaty obligations and Article 370 of India's Constitution.  According to Indian authorities (and the order itself), this purportedly did not affect the constitutional separateness of the Jammu and Kashmir.  In describing this order, the Press Information Bureau of India said: “The State of Jammu and Kashmir joins GST today making the GST truly a “ one nation, one tax” regime.”‍

Topics: changing the laws in force in occupied territory, international humanitarian law violation, no consent of governed, violation of economic rights, violation of cultural rights, violation of social rights, colonial domination, disempowerment

“As per information furnished by the Govt. of J&K which is available in our records, a total of 219 Kashmiri Pandits were killed during the turmoil in Jammu & Kashmir since 1989.”

The Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act authorized India’s armed forces to act with total impunity by granting personnel immunity from prosecution unless approved by the Government of India.  This law has been widely used to sanction impunity, human rights violations, acts constituting war crimes and acts constituting crimes against humanity in Indian-Administered Jammu and Kashmir.   In the words of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (2018): “AFSPA 1990 was passed by the Parliament of India on September 10, 1990 but was “deemed to have come into force” retrospectively from July 5, 1990. This act grants broad powers to the security forces operating in Jammu and Kashmir and effectively bestows immunity from prosecution in civilian courts for their conduct by requiring the central government to sanction all prospective prosecutions against such personnel prior to being launched….In the nearly 28 years that the law has been in force in Jammu and Kashmir, there has not been a single prosecution of armed forces personnel granted by the central government.” ‍

Topics: legalized impunity, sanctioning war crimes, sanctioning crimes against humanity, sanctioning human rights violations, denial of access to justice, denial of legal remedy, colonial domination

The Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act  has been widely used for decades to “legally” detain people for up to two years without charges or a trial on the pretext of maintaining “public order.”  The Public Safety Act has widely been condemned, including by the UN Human Rights Committee which has noted that the PSA contravenes the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, especially the rights to liberty and to a free and fair trial.  This is one of the select Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir laws that retained after the legal changes imposed on Indian-Adminsitered Jammu and Kashmir in August 2019.

‍Topics: preventive detention, arbitrary imprisonment, violation of political rights, violation of right to liberty, violation of right to free expression, violation of freedom of belief, violation of due process, violation of right to habeas corpus, violation of right to free and fair trial, prisoners of conscience, suppression of dissent, colonial domination