More than 2500 “un-identified” bodies buried in Northern Districts: SHRC Investigation
By SYYED MANSOOR AGHA
It is now official that more than 2500 un-identified bodies are buried in four Northern Districts of Kashmir. It is feared that the numbers may be manifold if un-marked graves are also reported from other districts too. An NGO, Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) has recorded 8000-10000 cases of involuntarily disappearance in the valley since 1989. It is suspected that most of them have been eliminated illegally to suppress “insurgency” after they had been picked up by security forces individually and collectively; and later could not be traced. Wives, parents and other relatives have been tired of knocking at the doors of politicians, army and administrative officers, judicial forums and jails with the hope to know the fate of their loved ones and their whereabouts but all in vain.
In an inquiry report, the investigative wing of the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC), headed by a SSP and prepared after three years long investigations has confirmed: “At 38 places visited in north Kashmir, there were 2,156 unidentified dead bodies buried in unmarked graves.” Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani claimed, “All these graves have been found in those areas where Army and BSF had set up camps.” Human Rights activists and community leaders of Kashmir have been complaining of widespread misuse of “Armed Forces of Special Powers Act” and “Jammu and Kashmir Disturbed Area Act” by Armed Forces and the Police. The investigation sheds new light on a grim chapter in the history of the troubled valley and confirms a 2008 report by a Kashmiri Human Rights Organisation that found hundreds of bodies buried in unmarked graves.
In its ‘Inquiry Report of Unmarked Graves in North Kashmir’, the investigative team of SHRC documented that it has found 2,730 unidentified bodies dumped in unmarked graves at 38 sites in four districts of North Kashmir’s Baramulla, Bandipora, Handwara and Kupwara. The investigators found that 18 of the graves contained more than one body. Out of them at least 574 have been identified as bodies of local Kashmiris. Only 17 bodies have been handed over to their relatives and re-buried in their respective graveyards. “There is every probability that these unidentified dead bodies buried in various unmarked graves at 38 places of North Kashmir contain the dead bodies of enforced disappearances,” the report said.
The team scoured police records to count the number of “unidentified bodies” sent for burial, cross-checked the information against testimonies from police officials, eyewitnesses, village committees, village heads, elders, mosque committees, gravediggers and records prepared by caretakers of the graveyards. Many witnesses spoke on the condition that they not be named — the testimonies of 62 who didn’t seek anonymity have been made part of the report.
The investigative team could trace out 21 unmarked graves in Baramulla, three each in Bandipore and Handwara and 11 in Kupwara. The probe said it established 851 unidentified bodies in Baramulla, 14 in Bandipore, 14 in Handwara and 1277 in Kupwara.
SHRC investigating team has called for a thorough inquiry and collection of DNA evidence to identify the dead, and urged that anyone killed by security forces in Kashmir in the future be properly identified to avoid abuse of special laws shielding the military. It is feared that many more such graves exist all over Kashmir, as under AFSPA and J&KDAA there was no control on security forces in killing any person on slightest suspect. As pointed out in the report, Kashmiri groups, including APDP and the International People’s Tribunal on Kashmir, have said there are similar unmarked graves in at least eight other districts of the state. The report recommended a thorough investigation by an ‘impartial agency’, and at least Rs Seven Lakh in compensation for each death.
State Government’s reaction on the report is shallow. State Home Minister said they had not yet read the report and will react after studying it. The Chief Minister’s suggestion of creating a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” to unearth human rights violations has found no takers. The Government of India is yet to give a reaction. Unfortunately media also did not give due importance to the bizarre report. Electronic media almost wiped out the news as it is under the grip of Annapohbia.
When Omar Abdullah had taken over as chief minister of the State in February 2009, Human Rights Watch wrote to him, saying: “Thousands of people remain victims of enforced disappearances in Jammu and Kashmir. The practices of ‘disappearances’ and extrajudicial executions violate basic human rights, including the right to life, the right to liberty and security of the person, the right to a fair and public trial, as well as the prohibition on torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment.
“Under international law, an enforced disappearance is a continuing crime until the ‘disappearance’ is resolved.” But the Government seems to be helpless as personnel of Armed Forces who committed violation of Human Rights are covered under infamous AFSPA and J&KDA Act. Even the courts find themselves helpless as in many cases armed forces did not turn up to their notices and refused to hand over wanted personnel for trials in civil courts. The report also revealed that most of the dead bodies had bullet marks.
The government had claimed that unmarked graves were of unidentified terrorists, most of them Pakistani insurgents/ infiltrators, whose bodies had been handed over to village authorities for burial. In response to commission inquiries, in March 2010 district police claimed that a total of 464 unidentified bodies had been buried in north Kashmir.
Seventeen pages report of the investigation was handed over to the SHRC last month but reported only on August 21 by Muzammil Jaleel in Sunday Express. A press statement of SHRC said, “Matter related to the unmarked graves came up before the Commission on August 10, wherein the Commission had directed issuance of the inquiry report copy submitted by the SSP of Investigation Wing of the Commission to the parties for filing their rejoinders or further responses.
“The next date of hearing in the matter had been fixed before Division Bench of Justice Syed Bashir-ud-din (Chairman of SHRC) and Javaid Ahmad Kawoosa on September 09, 2011.”
The SHRC investigation was the response to a campaign by the NGO, APDP which in March, 2008, released a report, “Facts Underground” and alleged the presence of unmarked graves with documentary proofs. The next month, the SHRC issued notices to then Congress-PDP government and set up the probe committee. In December 2009, another human rights group, the International People’s Tribunal on Human Rights, released a report claiming that unmarked graveyards “entomb bodies of those murdered in encounter, fake encounters and extrajudicial summary, and arbitrary executions.”
Reacting on media reports, Amnesty International in a statement urged the Centre to “initiate thorough investigations into unmarked graves throughout the State. All unmarked grave sites must be secured and investigations carried out by impartial forensic experts in line with the UN Model Protocol on the disinterment and analysis of skeletal remains.”
Amnesty also urged the State government to ensure the “safety of the 62 witnesses” who had given statements to the SHRC police team. It demanded that the witnesses, along with relatives of the disappeared persons, local human rights defenders and members of the police investigation team not be pressured, intimidated or subject to any reprisals.
“The Governments of India and Jammu and Kashmir must ensure that all past and current allegations of enforced disappearances are promptly, thoroughly, independently and impartially investigated and that, where there is sufficient evidence, anyone suspected of responsibility for such crimes is prosecuted in proceedings which meet international fair trial standards,” it said.
The report has a faint ray of hope for the relatives of disappeared persons. Many have begged the Government to let them know their whereabouts and if they are no more in the world, tell them where they have been dumped. The agony of women is nastiest as many young wives of disappeared persons do not even know whether or not they are widows. In every house a half widow, an old mother or father, and orphan youngsters may be traced living a life of misery and hanging between worst fears and hopes. They fear of un-informed extrajudicial execution of their husbands, sons, fathers or brothers and hope some good news. The report also sheds some light on the tyranny leashed out by “security” forces upon their own co-citizens. The government should come out with a comprehensive rehabilitation scheme, which may ease out some hardship of the affected families.
[The writer is Gen. Sec of Forum for Civil Rights: email: [email protected]]