And Kashmiris Continue To Suffer….

Guest Post By: Samreen Mushtaq

Sitting comfortably at home with a “Pheran” and Kangri to protect me from this chilly winter, a look at the calendar makes me realise that my vacations are just about to end. Four more days and I’ll be back to the artificial world of Delhi. The thought of being away has made Kashmir more dearer than ever to me. This vacation has certainly been a memorable one. What do I tell my roommates when they ask about how the vacations went? There’s a lot that happened, a lot that shouldn’t have happened.

Never will I forget the ‘Zoi se Zaalim’ controversy, when JK Police registered a case against the JK Board of School Education on the grounds that the picture of ‘zaalim’ (oppressor) shown in the Urdu text book of primary class was that of a policeman (well, they thought so). Never will I forget that I need to forget there exists a letter called ‘zoi’ in Urdu, afterall who wants to be booked?

How will I forget what welcomed Kashmir on the new year – the killing of a young student in Boniyar, Uri, in district Baramulla. The reason for the killing was, as usual, completely unjustified. He was killed just because there was a protest going on in the region against erratic power supply and the forces opened fire to disperse the unarmed protestors. Is this reason enough to kill someone? Is human life so cheap? But then, such things are bound to happen when the forces are most powerful and least accountable. Thanks to the draconian laws that protect them and hurt the commoner! Even though the Chief Minister promised swift action, it’s a secret to none that it is going to become another forgotten story for them, another terrible incident added to our memory and for the boy’s family, it’s a nightmare that they’ll live with every day…every night for the rest of their lives. Same is true about all those who lost their dear ones, about the families of the disappeared, about orphans, widows and half-widows. I’m reminded of these lines from Mirza Waheed’s The Collaborator - “I am aware that these bodies, these remains of our ‘disappeared’ boys, might serve as evidence one day…for someone to make a shocking discovery…for someone to write a front-page story…for someone to order a judicial enquiry. But then, who actually cares or does anything in the end? No one is ever punished here. It will only ever be a story.”

How can I forget how beautiful the valley looked when the white flakes danced in the air, how I again fell in love with my Kashmir as the snow draped it, how I wanted to keep looking at it all the time- at its’ snow-capped mountains, at the land and trees… Kashmir looked breath-taking. And then there was the ‘dark spell’, Kashmir was without electricity for three days at a time when the snow and icy winds had made winter even more harsh. Abundance of resources and still living in the ‘dark ages’.. And if you protest, you’ll be greeted with a bullet – Yes, that’s my Kashmir.

When my vacations had started, I came with the hope of seeing no more blood spilled, of seeing no family devastated, of seeing no flower of this vale wither away..but the contrary happened. As I prepare to go to Delhi, I know I’ll miss Kashmir but leave with the same hope and prayer – peaceful Kashmir.

Martyrs Charged By Police

Five persons killed in police and security forces firing during protest demonstrations at Tangmarg last year against the desecration of holy Quran in USA have been charge sheeted by police along with 15 others.

A police spokesman said the 20 persons including five deceased persons have been charge sheeted for the crimes punishable under section 307, 436, 147,148, 149 RPC.

He added that they charge sheet was presented before a court today in a court for setting ablaze government property worth crores of rupees at Tangmarg.

The incident had occured on September 13 following reports of desecration of holy Quran in USA. Police had opened fire on the protestors killing a number of persons. Curfew was imposed in the affected area for several days.

Police spokesman said the mob had burnt down different government buildings including tehsil office complex, animal husbandry department building, social welfare office building, Tyndale Biscoe school building.

A case FIR number 91/2010 under section 307, 436, 147,148, 149 RPC was registered in police station Tangmarg.

The spokesman added that during the investigation, police identified the accused persons who were leading the mob and orchestrated the arson, through photographs, video-clips and eyewitnesses.

101 Reasons Indian Security Forces Make Our Lives Miserable In Kashmir

BY; LONESOME KASHMIRI

1. By Having Their Guns pointed at us all the time.
2. By looking at us with suspicion all the time.
3. By Making us Show our Identification every 100 meters.
4. By Occupying our Orchards, Schools and Houses.
5. By shooting at us and taking sick pleasure from it.
6. By beating us while we play cricket in the field.
7. By making us sit in cold, hot weather and rain when they search our villages and towns.
8. By burning our property. In One instance they burnt down the entire Iqbal Market of Sopore.
9. By looting our valuables.
10. By Killing young innocent young people.
11. By consistently reminding us of their presence with their whistles and bamboo sticks.
12. By making us wait on the road for hours while their convoys are passing through.
13. By taking our vehicles whenever they want and sometimes keeping it with them for as long as they like.
14. By torturing us without any reason.
15. By arresting us without any warrant, proof or valid reason.
16. By forcibly taking our apples and other crops and not paying for it.
17. By ruining our forests and natural resources.
18. By having our deposit my identity card at the camp when I visit my sister’s place.
19. By having our walk almost a mile to the main gates of the army camp when we enter our own villages.
20. By having us record our names, addresses and telephone numbers even when I go inside my village.
21. By having to answer the army what I am doing in my own house.
22. By not being able to walk alone when I leave my house and have to go through a road where there is an army camp.
23. By making us run errands for them as if we are their servants.
24. By desecrating our religious places.
25. By entering our homes and showing no regard for our privacy.
26. By extorting money from us on various false allegations.
27. By making our young boys addicted to drugs and alcohol.
28. By embarrassing our elders and showing them no respect.
29. By Making us do forced labor for years and years.
30. By staging fake encounters.
31. By commiting custodial killings.
32. By wreaking havoc after grenade attack or firing incidents.
33. By haunting the steps of our sisters in Kashmir.
34. By blaming us for imaginary crimes.
35. By cordoning off the entire villages and not even allowing people to have a sip of water.
36. By forcing us to hoist Indian flags when we do not want to.
37. By forcing us to vote in elections when we do not want to.
38. By supporting anti-social activities and anti-social people.
39. By Making us go through an identification parade at every army camp we pass on our way.
40. By summoning the parents and relatives of Militants to army camps as if they were some petty criminals.
41. By occupying every bridge and bank of rivers.
42. By resorting to psychological torture when physical torture does not seem enough for them.
43. By not allowing us to particpate in our religious duties.
44. By having us use only lanterns and not torches or electric lamps when go out in the night.
45. By Not allowing us to pray in the Mosques.
46. By not allowing us to voice our protests.
47. By not listening to us and instead torture us some more.
48. By having to explain to the army why am I walking, running, Sleeping, Eating or even breathing.
49. By forcing us to carry multiple identifications all the time. And then not honoring them.
50. By making our take longer routes so I can avoid the army bunkers.
51. By having those hated military bunkers in every nook and corner of the valley.
52. By acting superior to us even though most of them are illiterate.
53. By constructing third rate Bus stands and sub-standard schools which endanger everybody.
54. By making Highways “One ways”.
55. By not allowing us to celebrate our religious festivals.
56. By not failing to summon the groom on the day of his wedding.
57. By making our hit my friends at gunpoint.
58. By taking everything from our including my pride.
59. By polluting our fresh water bodies.
60. By chopping down pine trees to make furniture for their homes.
61. By colluding with Government agents and destroying the cultural fabric of Kashmir.
62. By making us mentally sick with their presence.
63. By diluting our faith by bringing sins of alcohol, cinema etc. with them.
64. By making our places of worship inaccessible to us.
65. By using us as their shields in encounters.
66. By haunting the steps of our sisters.
67. By having us clean the blood of our brothers from the road.
68. By erecting Hindu temples in our localities.
69. By establishing circles and circles of barricades around your camps and making even our walking difficult.
70. By showing arrogance when offered water and they throwing the utensils to ground.
71. By talking obscenely to our elders and ladies.
72. By showing no regard to our sentiments and feelings regarding our history and religion.
73. By kidnapping people as if they do not matter.
74. By acting as police, Lawyers and Judges all by themselves.
75. By making us feel insignificant and unimportant.
76. By making our take permission from them for a wedding party even though it is my village, my home.
77. By Imposing restrictions on my movement any time they want.
78. By Making my mother and sisters cry every time they abduct our to their army camp.
79. By torturing relatives if there is a militant in the family. Does not matter even if that militant is not a close relative.
80. By refusing our passport again and again and again by giving negative verification reports.
81. By humiliating children in front of their parents and humiliating parents in front of their children.
82. By committing heinous crimes and then blaming them on us.
83. By frisking our every time I go into a government office.
84. By having to go through endless security checks at the airport.
85. By making our small children frightened by their hateful stares and abuses.
86. By hitting our young small children with rifle butts.
87. By making our hospitals places for them to practice.
88. By not allowing ambulances which carry critical patients.
89. By not allowing us to bury our dead with respect and honor.
90. By suffocating us with their alcoholic habits.
91. By making our young boys shameless and characterless.
92. By using 100′s of mortars to defeat one single militant and in the process destroying dozens of homes.
93. By coming in the dead of the night and harassing our religious figures.
94. By beating our Imams and Muezzins.
95. By showing no remorse when they desecrate the Quran ul Kareem.
96. By forcing us to shout “Jai Hind” when I don’t want to.
97. By forcibly making our say ‘Hey Ram” and Hindu Shloks when I hate to say it.
98. By asking our questions for which I have no answers.
99. By trying to sabotage any peace initiative in Villages.
100. By Making us lose our sanity with constant crackdowns and actions.
101. By simply being there all the time.

Unmarked Graves Give Up Their Shameful Secrets

By: Ben Doherty

Every village has stories of men and boys taken from their homes and never seen again, writes Ben Doherty in northern Kashmir.

The police bring the bodies. In the day or night they bring them, wrapped loosely in blankets or in the clothes they wore. ''The bodies come in very bad condition,'' Nizar Ahmed Mir tells the Herald through an interpreter, standing on the steep slopes of the Shaheed cemetery at the end of a narrow dirt road. ''They are bloody, some are in handcuffs, the clothing is torn. Most have been shot in the face, or the face has been damaged, so they cannot be identified. We don't know who they are, we are just told to bury them.''

Nizar lives in the town of Kupwara, in northern Kashmir, on the edge of one of the most restive regions of the valley.

He farms for a living, but besides that, is one of the men the police come to with bodies. He is one of Kashmir's reluctant, but compelled, gravediggers.

Many of the bodies are incomplete, Nizar says, missing hands or limbs. Sometimes police just bring a head, handing it over with the same instruction: ''Bury this''. The dead are all men.

The police didn't kill them. The army did. The police are the intermediaries and they have as little information as they pass on.

''The police bring the bodies, they say: 'The army gave them to us, they are militants killed in gunfight'. But we don't know who they are. There are no documents and the police don't want questions.

''We cannot argue with the police; we do not ask who they were, or how they died. We just bury them, like we are told.''

It is true that some of the bodies are those of militant soldiers, killed resisting the Indian military and police presence around the disputed line of control between the Indian- and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.

But every village in Kashmir carries stories of night-time invasions of homes by heavily armed soldiers, of men and boys taken away, never to be seen again, of people shot in the street and their deaths restaged to appear as though they occurred in battle. These are Kashmir's so-called ''fake encounters''.

Civil rights groups such as Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons estimate there are about 8000 men missing in Kashmir, disappeared over two decades of conflict. It appears now they might finally be found.

The bodies being uncovered in these graves are, almost certainly, those men. And for the first time, an Indian state government has admitted - albeit unwittingly and unwillingly - to Kashmir's worst-kept secret.

A leaked report by the State Human Rights Commission in Indian-controlled Kashmir has conceded ''it is beyond doubt that unmarked graves containing unidentified bodies do exist … in North Kashmir. There is every probability that these … graves … contain the bodies of enforced disappearances.''

The report said 2730 unidentified bodies had been found in Kashmiri soil and, through cursory efforts at identification, found that 574 of them were not foreign militants as claimed, but local men, killed and buried in secret. It has called for DNA testing of all of the unidentified bodies and said of government resistance to formal identification ''it has to be presumed the state wants to remain silent deliberately to hide the human rights violations''.

Built on a steep slope of land unusable for anything else, the Shaheed, the Urdu word for martyr, graveyard in Kupwara has only five graves that are marked with headstones. About a dozen more have small stone cairns pushed into the ground, some daubed with a painted number.

The number correlates only to the order a person was known to be buried.

While it appears there are about 20 bodies in the ground here, Nizar said there are more than 200 people buried in this narrow, steep wedge of land.

Some of the unmarked graves are apparent only because they have collapsed, leaving gaping holes. Of the others, there is no sign, and no record.

The Shaheed cemetery was full in less than three years, and bodies brought to Kupwara now are taken elsewhere.

About a kilometre away is Rigipura graveyard. It is also on a disused hillside, its graves packed in tight rows, a couple with names, more with numbers, but most completely unmarked save for the tell-tale disturbance of the earth.

Near a grove of walnut trees, the Herald is approached by a bricklayer who gives his name as Ghulam. He says that he, too, has been forced to bury bodies by police. ''Here,'' he walks to a bare patch of earth near the fence and points down.

''Here I had to bury a head. Two months before. No body. Just a head. I did not know who it was.''

He says all the bodies he has been made to bury have had their faces disfigured. None have been identifiable.

''Yes, I believe they are forced disappearances, the fake encounters.''

Publicly, at least, the government of Jammu and Kashmir is maintaining the bodies are those of militants killed in combat against the Indian military or as they tried to illegally cross the Line of Control into Pakistan to receive arms training.

The chief of army in Jammu and Kashmir, Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain, declined an interview with the Herald, but the Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, told the state assembly his government would investigate all the unmarked graves and has proposed a truth and reconciliation commission ''for the people of the state''.

But he warned that investigations would take time, and that the conflict in Kashmir was not black and white.

''We are not here to hide the facts or conceal the truth … but our endeavour is to dig out the facts and bring these before the public. This cannot be done overnight but we have to make a start in this direction.''

Mr Abdullah said it was unfair to blame security forces for all of the deaths in Kashmir.

''I can say with authority that some of the persons buried in these unmarked graves were killed by the militants,'' he said.

Mr Abdullah denied there were any mass graves in Kashmir. But his government's own human rights watchdog disagrees, and is damning of security forces.

The human rights commission accuses the police of falsifying claims about how people died, and says it found mass graves in the valley.

The commission's report also says there are almost certainly more secret gravesites in the valley.

Since 1988, the violence in Kashmir has claimed more than 43,000 lives.

Jana Begum knows the cost of those lost lives. Five of them belonged to her family.

In half a decade, she lost her husband and four sons to Kashmir's violence. Two of her sons were picked up by police in Kupwara. Eighteen days later she was told her sons were buried in the Rigipura cemetery.

Her husband was seized by authorities in a midnight raid and taken into custody. Six months later he emerged, so badly beaten he survived only one day at home.

''He was so unwell, he was unable to eat anything. We were feeding him milk in a spoon, but we could not stop him from dying. He died because of the interrogation,'' she said.

Another son was shot through an open window in the family home, while another simply vanished while he was studying at an Islamic school in Deoband. His body has never been found.

Jana Begum sits in the bare front room of her house.

Speaking barely above a whisper, she points out the bullet holes in the window frames. The same bullets, she says, took her son.

She holds a picture of the family she lost, and says she believes her family was targeted because her husband was an imam and her sons went to religious schools to study the Koran.

''The militants came to our house and demanded that my family join them, but they refused,'' she said. ''But people see the militants enter our home and they think we are working for them. We did not. We were never part of that. Not ever.''

The loss of the men in her family has left her destitute.

''During festivals like Eid, I go to Srinagar, to beg for money from people. I have no other way, no choice. My whole family is destroyed by these terrible incidents.''

Jana Begum has no interest in peace in the valley. She doesn't believe it will come, and she no longer cares.

''The people who did this, they took my sons and my husband,'' she said.

''I have no interest in anything they do now. They cannot give me my family back.''

The bruised Childhood of Kashmir

By: Advocate Babar Jan Qadri

“A Nation’s Welfare depends upon the prosperity of its children”

We define minor as a living human usually in his teenage more specifically 16 or less than 16 years. Just after the infancy, starts the minor age of a human being. This age is associated with innocence and grooming of childhood. How a nation shapes its minors on that paradigm depends the future of that very nation. Being a Kashmiri , I think the day our nations sovereignty is plundered and snatched , the same day we the children of conflict have lost our child hood “ curse to occupation “

Unfortunately, revolutionary circumstances prevailing in the Kashmir over the past several decades have not even spared the “Childhood”. The state repression has come with its full force over the children of this deadly conflict zone. Virtually India has waged war against minor revolutionaries of the wounded paradise.

On this global Children Day, we are reminded of horrible scenes .We are reminded of so many young toddlers being beaten to death by merciless men in uniform. We are reminded of constant fear on the faces of our minors.

This year we were heartened by the images of minors being flocked to jails and brought to courts and examination centers in a quiet disgraceful manner by the state forces. The minors on account of alleged involvement in revolutionary activities were subjected to third degree torture .How sham it is for a country that claims herself to be the biggest democracy of globe and boasts of having high morals of loving and catering to young souls.

Probably, after the Nazi Germany, our part of the world is the only places were minors have faced such an unprecedented state brunt. A minor having revolutionary thought is seen as an “Enemy of Nation” by the state and its institutions and is constantly threatened and mentally tortured. Out of state fear, even other parents fear to make their child accustomed with a revolutionary minor .The state even after releasing a minor constantly perpetrates violence on him, as they have to constantly report to their concerned police stations wherein they are humiliated and tortured.This is unknown to any criminal justice system in the world that a person is arrested for want of others surrender " a worst kind of human exchange policy ", but the same happens in Kashmir , as the father/ brother is arrested to force a son / brother to surrender

Indian state might be the rare state wherein the minors, especially the minors of Kashmir have often reported evil deeds like sodomy reported against them. The state has left no stone unturned to turn the childhood of our minors into a virtual nightmare. By hook or crook you have to be a conformist and should remain dumb over the brutalities of the state otherwise the norm has been to crush the innocence and logical rebellion of minor.

One is only dumbfounded by the revelation that state machinery slaps unthinkable charges like “War against nation” against the minor souls of Kashmir.

On the other side of the spectrum, even if the bail is granted the police does not honor the orders of judiciary. The judiciary is made defunct by the villain’s of police department. For a Kashmiri these minors represent hope i.e. the urge for freedom has passed on to next generation in spite of all state terror tactics being employed by the state to quell the sentiment of freedom.According to section 18 of juvinyle justice act , a minor is to be released on bail on the very first day of production before court with or without sureties . According to the same section a juvenile can be sent to juvenile home if required but the role of police is to be minimized by court by handing over the minor to in-charge juvinile home but the same is not complied with , instead it is police personal who administer minors even when they are sent to juvenile home thus putting the minors at risk .

On this children day, India over its track record in Kashmir has shamed the noble institution of childhood by unleashing very possible brutal measure over the minors of Kashmir. The conscience of India should wake up from the slumber and let dawn of freedom and liberty spread its wings over the browbeaten land of Kashmir.

Shocking Brutalities in Kashmir

Guest Write up By: Sajjad Shaukat

The question of unmarked graves which shows shocking brutalities of Indian security forces in the Indian-Held Kashmir is appearing with more details which were concealed by New Delhi. In this respect, in its recent report which was also published by several Chinese newspapers, China’s leading News Agency Xinhua has unearthed more gruesome details on world-stunning unmarked graves in Poonch, in the Indian occupied Kashmir. While quoting reliable local sources, the report disclosed the statement of Sofi Aziz Joo, caretaker of a graveyard as saying, “Police and Army used to bring those bodies and direct me to bury them. The bodies were usually bullet-ridden, mutilated, faces disfigured and sometimes without limbs and heads.”Xinhua’s report said, “Burials are carried out quietly without involving the local people…burials of those killed by army and police usually stoke protests in the region against police and army with the demand of end to New Delhi’s rule.”

On September 27 this year Amnesty International said that lawmakers in Indian-held Kashmir should discuss the recent discovery of unnamed graves containing more than 2,000 bullet-riddled bodies and should demand an independent panel be set up to identify the bodies, noting the same recommendation made by the Jammu-Kashmir State Human Rights Commission which had yet to be acted upon. It repeatedly emphasised, indicating, “The state government must also ensure that all past and current allegations of enforced disappearances are promptly, thoroughly, independently and impartially investigated”, adding that anyone found responsible should be prosecuted

. It is notable that after widespread allegations of human rights abuses in the Indian occupied Kashmir by the army, paramilitary and police, a commission was set up in 1997. However, Indian Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) has officially acknowledged in its report in August this year that innocent civilians killed in the two-decade conflict may have been buried in unmarked graves.

According to the report of the Indian commission, “Hundreds of unmarked graves in Kashmir hold more than 2,000 bullet-riddled bodies that may include innocent victims, despite police claims that they were militants fighting Indian rule in the disputed Himalayan territory.” Indian Commission’s report indicated, “2,156 unidentified bodies were found in mass graves in three northern mountainous regions, while 574 other bodies were found in the graves have been identified as local residents.

The probe said it noted 851 unknown bodies in Baramulla, 14 in Bandipore, 14 in Handwara and 1277 in Kupwara. While concealing actual details, it also acknowledged that few bodies were defaced, 20 were charred, five only had skulls remaining and there were at least 18 graves with more than one body each. Before this admission, Indian high officials have been emphasising that all these bodies were of militant fighters—claimed by police when they were handed over to villages for burial. While, rights groups have disclosed that more than 8,000 people have disappeared, accusing government forces of staging fake gunbattles to cover up killings. The groups also revealed that suspected rebels have been arrested and never heard from again. Notably, Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP), which in March 2008 released a report, titled, “Facts Underground”, had indicated the presence of unidentified graves. The APDP, which estimates around 10,000 people went missing during last two decades, claims, “many missing people may have ended up in these unmarked graves.” In December 2009, another human rights group, the International People’s Tribunal on Human Rights had released a report claiming that unnamed graveyards “entomb bodies of those, murdered in fake encounters and arbitrary executions.” Earlier, on August 23, 2011, Amnesty International had said that the investigation of graves in three regions also needs to be widened to the entire Indian-held portion of Kashmir. It insisted, “All unmarked grave sites must be secured and investigations carried out by impartial forensic experts.” In fact, since 1989 when movement of liberation in the Indian-controlled Kashmir accelerated, more than 70,000 people have been killed by Indian forces and police. Indian security forces employed various techniques of ethnic cleansing such as unlawful confinement, kidnapping, sieges, curfews, shelling of civilians, the destruction of homes and mosques, rape, torture, beating etc. And these inhuman methods contunued till the death of innocent Kashmiris. Besides, a number of unarmed individutals were killed by the Indian military, para-military troops and police in the fake encounters. So unnamed graves include a majority of those Kashmiris who were tortured to death by the security forces or directly killed by the Indian secret agency RAW. It is of particular attention that on June 28, 2010, BBC reported, “Three men went missing in Indian-administered Kashmir in April…but some time later their bodies were discovered near the Line of Control…a senior officer of the Indian army had kidnapped them by offering them jobs as porters. The troops later informed the police that they had killed three militants. Kashmir’s law minister, Ali Mohammad Sagar says there have been several proven cases of fake encounters in the past 20 years.”

BBC explained, “There are hardliners in the Indian Army and intelligence agencies, who think that by raising the bogey of infiltration and gun battles near the border they can create terror among people and also put pressure on Pakistan.”

Over the 20 years of violence in Jammu and Kashmir, Human Rights Watch has documented numerous failures to ensure protection of human rights. It has called for the repeal of laws such as the Jammu and Kashmir Disturbed Areas Act, the Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act and the Public Safety Act. These laws provide the armed forces with extraordinary powers to search, detain, and use lethal force, leading to numerous human rights violations. They also provide immunity for security forces. Prosecutions of security force personnel, even where the facts are well established, are rare. In the recent past, WikiLeaks have also pointed out the involvement of Indian Army in extrajudicial killings and other gross human rights violations in the Jammu and Kashmir. The related-cable has urged the US to secretly divert UN attention towards the genocide of innocent civilians at the hands of Indian forces. It seems that non-condemnation of these Indian acts of massive human rights violations by the so-called civilised international community has further encouraged New Delhi to step-up its brutalities on the armless Kashmiri masses. Indian authorities are not willing to talk with Kashmiri people on political grounds. India perhaps reached to a conclusion that only bullet is the right way of dealing with Kashmiris, demanding their right of self-determination. Surprisingly, Indian successive governments are trying to ignore the dynamics of the Kashmiris movement for the freedom from the Indian alien rule. Reliable sources suggest that India has partially withdrawn the draconian Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) which was introduced in 1990. But it has only been amended in black and white, because in practice, it continues as Indian armed forces have totally failed in crushing the liberation movement of kashmiris with perennial wave of state terrorism. There can be no lasting political settlement in Kashmir unless human rights abuses that have fueled the ongoing uprising are addressed. Surprisingly, despite the assurances by New Delhi and Indian-puppet regime of the Kashmir so as to take punitive action against the concerned security personale with a view to stoping humanitarian crisis in the occupied areas, there has been no policy change in the repressive activities of Indian security forces as schocking brutalities and human rights violations in Kashmir continue unabated.

Nevertheless, the Indian government’s disregard for human rights in Jammu and Kashmir means that in practice, people reportedly died in custody and the whereabouts of the disappeared persons continue to be unknown. Therefore, more unmarked graves could be discovered from the Indian-held Kashmir in furture as with the help of local people, various human rights organisations and media are making strenous efforts in this matter.

Photo Feature: Children being humiliated publicly before their release by occupational forces

Sixteen Minors who were detained by occupational forces being humiliated publicly before their release

How India alienated Kashmiri people

BY: AIJAZ ZAKA SYED

An unjust law is no law, warned Martin Luther King, the celebrated U.S. human rights icon. The Kashmiris have been living with suchlaws for decades. At least one in every five Kashmiris has at some point or another in his/her life suffered violence, humiliation, torture and old-fashioned abuse at the hands of security forces without any recourse to justice or a distant promise of retribution

Is it any wonder then the Kashmiris today find themselves hopelessly alienated and persecuted even as our politicians never tire of pronouncing the state an “integral and inseparable” part of India?.

The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act has been a license to abuse, torture and kill the Kashmiris in their own land. A law that confers “special powers” on men in uniform to do as they please and get away with it; a law that the UN says violates “contemporary international human rights standards” and a law that cannot be challenged in any court of law no matter how grave the crime.

Following the division of the subcontinent in 1947 when India and Pakistan actively courted the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, it was promised a “special status” and special treatment by New Delhi. The Article 370 of Indian Constitution was supposed to protect that “special status” of Kashmir. We made a lot of other promises as well that are too familiar to revisit here.

And we have ensured and protected that “special status” of Kashmir by gifting them the AFSPA that offers sweeping powers to the security forces while ensuring their total immunity. This special law has turned the Vale of Kashmir that the Moguls believed was paradise on earth into a beautiful hell.

How did we end up here? Who lost the paradise? The answer is out there and everyone knows it. In our desperation and determination to keep Kashmir with us and away from our neighbor, we have ended up losing the Kashmiri people.

Of course, the role played by Pakistani agencies, not to mention groups such as the one led by Hafiz Saeed, who have made a business enterprise of jihad, in adding to the woes of Kashmiris isn’t in anyway insignificant.

But if an entire generation of Kashmiris has grown up loathing all things Indian it is because of the excessive presence of the security forces in the Valley and their heavy-handed approach to the local population. And if there is one thing that epitomizes all that has go

ne wrong with India’s Kashmir affair, it is the AFSPA. This black law has created a dangerous, ever deepening disconnect and gulf between the Kashmiris and the rest of India. A draconian law that belongs in a police state, not in the world’s largest democracy.

Thanks to these “special powers”, just about anybody could be picked up from anywhere any time, kicked, abused, raped, killed in broad daylight or simply disappeared and no one including the state government can do anything about it.

Security forces are a law unto themselves. And you see their power in full display all across the state including in capital Srinagar. There are more soldiers than tourists or even locals constantly reminding the Kashmiris of the original sin of being born in this land of incredible beauty. Peaceful protests last year saw scores of young people, some of them as young as nine, felled by the bullets of the forces that are supposed to protect them. In the course of fighting terrorists and cross-border infiltrators, we have turned this beautiful land into a permanent war zone and its proud people a hostage in this never-ending conflict with the neighbor. This war has claimed more than a hundred thousand Kashmiris over the past two decades, not to mention the tens of thousands who have gone “missing.”
If the 2,730 unmarked mass graves recently discovered across the state had been found elsewhere they could have shaken the world, as they did in Srebrenica, in Iraq and Rwanda. But they were met with stony silence in the ever-shrill Indian media and its self-righteous Western counterparts.

Human rights groups including the State Human Rights Commission that finally acted on the complaints of thousands of families of “disappeared persons” unearthing graves with hundreds of bullet riddled bodies fear this may be a tip of the iceberg. The dead in Kashmir have finally begun to speak up, as Arundhati Roy so evocatively puts it. But justice may still elude the victims as long as the AFSPA reigns in Jammu and Kashmir. And India’s powerful security and defense establishment, including the army, are determined to retain it. And why wouldn’t they? It’s this law that allows the security forces to rule and treat Kashmir as their fiefdom without anyone, including the elected government, questioning their authority and excesses. Despite being a fine and vibrant democracy with robust democratic institutions and judiciary that we can justifiably be proud of, we are yet to realize that no people can be governed at gunpoint. Not in this age and time. Not with black laws like the AFSPA and not by constantly waving half a million guns that have contributed to the alienation of Kashmiri society and radicalization of its youth. If India is to win Kashmiri hearts and minds, it could do so only with love, compassion, respect and justice.

(The writer is a Middle East-based commentator. This article first appeared in Arab News on Nov. 3, 2011.)

Indian Government trying to change demography of J&K state

Chairman Hurriyat Conference Syed Ali Geelani has said that the government of India was trying to settle non-resident slum-dwellers in Jammu and Kashmir and alter the state’s demography.

Geelani said his amalgam had proof that government was planning to settle 498000 non-resident slum-dwellers.

“India is following Israeli tactics. In fact, both the issues were born at the same time and today you see 40 lakh Palestinians living as refugees in their own land,” he said.

“The puppet government says that they will raise houses for state-subjects, but these are hoax claims. State-subjects have a right in the constitution but under this garb, just like dogra certificate, the government is trying to settle slum-dwellers knowing the devastating impact they are having on our society.

“And this is the puppet government which is accusing us of exploiting youth, disrupting peace, when they are responsible for the slavery of people, filling colors in sketches of India,” he said.

“I want to ask them that it was your leader (National Conference founder, Sheikh Abdullah), who surrendered after 22 years for chair of chief minister, who passed the land grants bill which allots land to outsiders on lease for 90 years. The same man, who you are trying to project as hero today passed black laws like PSA, the land grants bill,” he said.

“Ironically it was the (last Dogra ruler) Hari Singh who passed a law that that non-residents cannot buy land here or property, but then the man who paved way for all this today his son, grandson, and other agencies and pro-India parties are filling the colours in sketches of India,” he said.

Geelani said the puppet government was raising hue and cry over environment protection while no attention was being paid towards the adverse impact on environment due to “uncontrolled” rush of yatra .

“No Kashmiri is against the annual Amarnath Yatra; we fed them when RSS backed fanatics had imposed a blockade on us in 2008, but we want the numbers of the pilgrims to be regulated just as there are restrictions (on the number of pilgrims) in Gangotri,” he said.

“The puppet government boasts of 6.5 lakh yatris visiting Kashmiris this year but nobody talks of the degrading effect it has on the environment.”

New Delhi is using cultural aggression to “prolong its occupation in Kashmir,” Geelani said the educational institutes were being “used” for the same. “Our boys and girls are lured to dance and stand up in esteem when jana gana mana is played, and this cultural aggression is more dangerous than forcible occupation,” he said.

Geelani said the media should give space to the “voice of oppressed”.