UK Edition
Kashmir rights groups seek UN probe into hundreds of cases of torture by Indian Army
Human rights groups have called for a UN investigation into the more than 400 cases of torture allegedly carried out by the Indian Army in Jammu and Kashmir since 1990.
A report published by the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) and the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) said at least 40 people out of 432 case studies documented died “as a result of injuries received during torture.”
APDP and JKCCS said detainees described being raped, sodomized, waterboarded and electrocuted by the Indian authorities.
In total, they claim tens of thousands of Kashmiri citizens have been tortured over the past three decades.
Conflict between India and Pakistan has regularly erupted in the autonomous state since Partition in 1947.
Increasingly, militants supporting self-sovereignty and Islamic fundamentalists have also clashed with the Indian Army.
However, the 560-page report titled “Torture: Indian State’s Instrument of Control in Indian Administered Jammu and Kashmir,” found that 70 per cent of those subjected to torture were in fact civilians, and this number included political and human rights activists, as well as children.
For example, Muzaffer Ahmed Mirza and Manzoor Ahmad Naikoo from Tral were both subjected to horrifying abuse, leading to the rupture of their internal organs. Zubair Ahmad Turray, a 13-year-old boy from Shopian, was forced to sit on a burning heater and beaten so badly he was unable to move his arms.
The latest death was in March when Rizwan Pandith, a school principal, died “while he was trying to escape from police custody.”
The threat of detainment has contributed to a severe mental health crisis with 45 per cent of Kashmiris suffering from mental distress.
The APDP and JKCCS called on the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to launch an independent investigation into the abuse.
"One of the most widely perpetrated human rights violations in Kashmir always has been torture but somehow it was the most undocumented because people who underwent torture and survived considered themselves lucky and never wanted to complain as they were scared of reprisals," Khurram Parvez, the Head of the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society told The Telegraph.
"This report will create space for people to consider speaking out against torture, which otherwise has become accepted in our society."
Juan E. Mendez, the former UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, urged the international community to “express concern about India’s human rights record” in the report’s prologue.
He said a previous plea to the Indian UN mission to allow for an investigation received no response.
Additional reporting by Lateef Rather