The International People’s Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice (IPT), a rights watchdog, claims to have found “2,700 unknown and unmarked mass graves containing 2,943 bodies” across 55 villages in Kashmir. A report on the findings will be released on Wednesday.
“About 2,700 unknown and unmarked graves containing 2,943 bodies have been found in Bandipora, Baramulla, and Kupwara districts. These graves sprung up at various times during the 20 years of turmoil in Jammu and Kashmir,” said Khurram Parvez, liaison officer of IPT in Kashmir.
“The report examines 50 alleged “encounter” killings by Indian security forces. Of these, 49 people were labelled militants/foreign insurgents by the security forces. However, the IPT found that 47 people were killed in fake encounters and only one was a local militant,” said Parvez.
The report comes 19 months after the Association of Parents of Disappeared People (APDP) released its first report on nameless graves. Titled ‘Facts Under Ground’, the report gave details of 940 to 1000 nameless graves. The report was compiled after a two-year survey conducted by volunteers of the APDP in three tehsils, including Uri and Baramulla in north Kashmir.
“There’s a connectionbetweenthe people who disappearedandthese unmarked and unidentified graves. Credibleandindependentinvestigationsmustbeundertaken intoalldisappearancesand staged killings sincethe conflict began. Thenames of those disappearedbetween 1989-2009shouldberenderedintothepublicdomain,” the report says. The rights group has demanded that all investigations conducted on thesedisappearancesshouldbemade public.
“Afull-scaleinvestigationmustbecommissionedunderprovisionsoftheCommissionsofInquiryAct,1952, orotherrelevantlaws,to inquireintothedisappearanceswithinareasonabletimeframe. Onthematterofdisappearances,wealsonotethatcertainmilitantswho surrenderedtosecurityforceshavebeendisappearedinviolationofHabeas Corpus, and that the chain of violations in these cases should be investigated,” the report says.
The Jammu and Kashmir government reacted cautiously to the findings. “I did not see any report. It may be unofficially somewhere. I did not go through it. If they are releasing it tomorrow, we will go through it and then react,” said Ali Mohammad Sagar, state minister for law, parliamentary affairs and rural development.
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