US State Department Report Confirms Human Rights Atrocities in Kashmir

On May 24, 2012, the US State Department issued a voluminous report entitled “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2011.”

Although covering many other countries, it is worth noting that the report cites the widespread human rights violations committed by Indian military and paramilitary forces in the disputed territory of Jammu and Kashmir.  The revelations are remarkable and startling in light of the current policy of the Obama administration to maintain a studied silence regarding the atrocities in Kashmir in order to encourage commercial and military arms trade with India.

The report says that the most significant human rights problems were police and security force abuses, including extra-judicial killings, torture, and rape; widespread corruption at all levels of government; and separatist, and societal violence.

Other human rights problems included disappearances, poor prison conditions that were frequently life threatening, arbitrary arrest and detention, and lengthy pretrial detention. Widespread impunity at all levels of government remained a serious problem.

In its section under “Arbitrary or Unlawful Deprivation of Life” the report cites a number of instances in Kashmir.

On July 2, the Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission submitted an interim report entitled The Enquiry Report of Unmarked Graves in North Kashmir to the state government. This report was leaked to the press last August but was not made public. According to the media, the report documented 2,156 bodies in unmarked graves at 38 different sites in districts that had been at the heart of the insurgency in the 1990s.

Unfortunately, these 2,156 mass graves are in addition to what Mr. Pankaj Mishra, an Indian scholar, wrote in the U.K. based Daily Guardian on August 13, 2010, that “Once known for its extraordinary beauty, the valley of Kashmir now hosts the biggest, bloodiest and also the most obscure military occupation in the world. With more than 80,000 people dead in an anti-India insurgency backed by Pakistan, the killings fields of Kashmir dwarf those of Palestine and Tibet. In addition to the everyday regime of arbitrary arrests, curfews, raids, and checkpoints enforced by nearly 700,000 Indian soldiers, the valley’s 4 million Muslims are exposed to extra-judicial execution, rape and torture, with such barbaric variations as live electric wires inserted into penises.”

The report points out that the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) remained in effect in Nagaland, Manipur, Assam, and parts of Tripura, and a version of the law was in effect in Jammu and Kashmir. Under the AFSPA the government can declare any state or union territory a “disturbed area,” a declaration that allows security forces to fire on any person to “maintain law and order” and to arrest any person “against whom reasonable suspicion exists” without informing the detainee of the grounds for arrest. The law gives security forces immunity from prosecution for acts under the AFSPA. 

Most encounter killings, in which security forces and police extra-judicially killed alleged criminals or insurgents, occurred in areas in conflict, but the practice reportedly occurred elsewhere in the country as well. For example, on August 8, Special Police Officer (SPO) Abdul Majid and territorial army soldier Noor Hussain took a mentally disabled civilian to Surankot forest in Jammu and Kashmir and then launched an operation with the police and the 25 Rashtriya Rifles unit to eliminate a “dreaded terrorist” in the area. When the bullet-riddled body was found, the SPO said that he wanted to be a constable and the soldier requested a cash reward of 200,000 rupees ($3,790). Both were arrested and charged with murder for the fake encounter. The identity of the victim was not reported.

By comparison, as with the recent brouhaha involving the case of blind activist Chen Guangcheng who took refuge in the American embassy in Beijing and has since been allowed to enter the U.S., to the embarrassment of our most favored financial partner and creditor, this report on Kashmir calls for a more aggressive public posture by the Obama administration that takes India to task for its failure to respond to these charges, which have been ongoing and flagrant for many years.

The State Department report goes on to say that, despite the published recommendations of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) that the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) investigate all police encounter deaths, many states did not follow these guidelines and continued to conduct internal reviews only at the discretion of senior officers. 

The Special Operations Group of the Jammu and Kashmir police killed Nazim Rashid of Sopor, Kashmir, while he was in custody. Rashid died on July 30, while being held in connection with an investigation into the killing of a laborer. 

The National Security Act (NSA) allows police to detain persons considered security risks anywhere in the country, except Jammu and Kashmir, without charge or trial for as long as one year. The law stipulates that family members and lawyers can visit NSA detainees and that authorities must inform a detainee of the grounds for detention within five days (10 to 15 days in exceptional circumstances). In practice these rights sometimes were not enforced. 

The Public Safety Act, which applies only in Jammu and Kashmir, permits state authorities to detain persons without charge or judicial review for as long as two years. During this time family members do not have access to detainees. Detainees are allowed access to a lawyer during interrogation. In practice police in Jammu and Kashmir routinely employed arbitrary detention and denied detainees, particularly the destitute, access to lawyers and medical attention. 

Courts in Jammu and Kashmir often were reluctant to hear cases involving insurgent and terrorist crimes and failed to act expeditiously, if at all, on habeas corpus cases. 

Thousands of habeas corpus cases remain pending in the courts throughout the Kashmir valley. 

On February 6, the army apologized to the citizens of Jammu and Kashmir for the fake encounter death of Manzoor Ahmad Magray.  

Estimates of the number of missing persons varies. Human rights organizations stated there were 8,000 to 10,000 persons missing but in custody in Jammu and Kashmir.

These individuals have been reported missing for the past more than 10 years.  Isn’t it time for the State Department to do something about it?  It seems that mass graves discovered in Libya were useful for propaganda purposes when NATO was taking down the Moammar Qadafi regime, but any real concern for the human rights issue involved appears to be irrelevant.

Security forces often searched and question vehicle occupants at checkpoints, mostly in troubled areas in the Kashmir valley, before public events in New Delhi or after major terrorist attacks. The government maintains a 330-mile security fence along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir, causing difficulties for residents because the fence cuts through some villages and agricultural lands. 

The government legally may deny a passport to any applicant who it believes may engage in activities outside the country “prejudicial to the sovereignty and integrity of the nation.” 

Citizens from Jammu and Kashmir continue to face extended delays, often as long as two years, before the Ministry of External Affairs would issue or renew their passports. The government subjected applicants born in Jammu and Kashmir–including children born to military officers during their deployment in the state–to additional scrutiny, requests for bribes, and police clearances before issuing them passports. 

Human rights groups alleged that state human rights commissions were limited by local politics and less likely to offer fair judgments than the NHRC. For example, the Jammu and Kashmir commission did not have the authority to investigate alleged human rights violations committed by members of paramilitary security forces.

This report reflects historically the underlying values of America. The public face of American values on human rights has been upheld by all administrations, Republican or Democrat because human rights are not simply American values; everyone universally recognizes them.  Americans as a whole support human rights whenever violations are made public.  However, that conscience does not seem to filter up into the ranks of government beyond token gestures that serve the political aspirations of candidates for office.   It was generous of  President Obama to have spoken out two weeks before being elected about the need for the U.S. to work toward a settlement of the Kashmir issue, but once elected the issue took not just a back seat but ended up in the trunk along with used oil cans and dirty rags.

 

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