In February 2023, Indian authorities continued their systematic repression and rights violations in Indian-administered Kashmir (IAK) with impunity. Indian authorities intensified their ongoing campaign of expropriation and destruction of civilian property, including homes and personal property. The Jammu & Kashmir administration utilized the heightened political disempowerment of the local population to further their economic disempowerment through new property taxes. The administration redoubled its digital surveillance of employees, especially targeting those critical of government policy. The administration also continued to arm, train and finance Hindu vigilante groups with a history of racist violence, criminality and grave rights violations. Survey results from international media correspondents in India described the Indian government’s harassment of journalists and obstruction of journalism with respect to certain topics, including in particular the situation in IAK. In a case with broad significance for the rights to free expression and a free press, and the free operation of international media in India or territories controlled by India, Indian authorities raided the BBC’s offices in India in retaliation for releasing “The Modi Question,'' a documentary on the Narendra Modi administrations’ responsibility for Hindu supremacist violence targeting Muslims in India (the documentary itself was banned in India).

The already dire humanitarian and human rights situation in IAK has substantially deteriorated since August 4, 2019 when Indian authorities imposed new, violative laws and policies on IAK – illegalities predicated on earlier illegalities condemned by the UN Security Council. At that time, the Indian government further intensified its militarized repression in IAK, escalated collective punishment and mass illegal imprisonment of dissenters, and consolidated its dominance over the local population while totally cutting Kashmiris off from the international community. Indian authorities have subsequently implemented policies facilitating and incentivizing forced demographic change in the region in favor of non-local Hindus, cultural erasure, and the economic and social disempowerment of IAK’s Muslims, Kashmiri Muslims in particular, in their homeland. Other grave human rights violations remain ongoing. Indian authorities have increasingly targeted Kashmiri human rights defenders and other dissenters – including journalists, scholars, lawyers and political activists – for repression through legal restrictions on their work, raids of their homes and places of employment, arbitrary arrests and detentions under counter-terror laws, and physical abuse.

In January 2023, Indian authorities continued to commit grave human rights violations in IAK. Indian forces killed at least two people and involuntarily disappeared another. Indian forces continued to collectively punish Kashmiris, including through raiding the homes of dissidents and harassing their families, expropriating and demolishing homes and property, restricting people’s right to movement and imposing communications and internet shutdowns. Additionally, the Jammu & Kashmir administration continued to systematically expropriate Kashmiris’ homes, commercial property, fields, orchards and other real property-related without due process or compensation. The administration continued to develop its extensive data collection and surveillance apparatus in IAK.

On January 27, 1994, soldiers of the 31 Madras Regiment, the 15 Punjab Regiment and the Rashtriya Rifles as well as Kilo Force (counterinsurgency) (under the command of GDS Bakshi and VK Singh) through "deliberate and indiscriminate" firing killed at least 21 people and injured at least 37 people in Kupwara. This fact finding probe was compiled by Institute of Kashmir studies and has been reproduced by Legal Forum for Kashmir.

Topics: Kupwara massacre: brief facts, insights from witness statements, tolls of the massacre, IKS study, testimonies, International Forum for Justice, Human Rights takes the role ahead, CID of J&K Police submits a report with SHRC, list of perpetrators, lists of victims

‍Terms: systematic killing, mass killing, systematic maiming, mass maiming, denial of right to free expression, legalized impunity, failure of accountability, war crimes, crimes against humanity

In November and December 2022, Indian authorities continued to commit grave human rights violations in Indian-administered Kashmir (IAK). Indian forces killed at least one person in November and nine people in December. Indian forces also claimed to have killed two people who crossed the Line of Control from Pakistan-administered Kashmir (PAK) and apprehended one such person in November. In December, two civilians who worked on an Indian military base were shot and a third was critically wounded as they entered the base.

Indian authorities continued their systematic suppression of the freedom of expression and violations of the social, economic, cultural, and political rights of Kashmiris. The homes of numerous journalists and one lawyer were raided by Indian authorities. One person was sentenced to prison based on social media posts. Authorities expropriated private property worth crores of Indian rupees (or millions of US dollars) for purported terror connections. The Jammu & Kashmir administration announced new land grant rules which authorize the dispossession of local businesses from land subject to long-term leases in contravention of custom and the intent of such leases, facilitating the redistribution of valuable real property rights to non-locals. The administration also unveiled plans to create a database of Kashmiri families in the territory, heightening credible concerns regarding surveillance, silencing, reprisals, and transnational repression. The state-run Jammu and Kashmir Waqf Board contravened long-standing custom by dispossessing local, community-based shrine and mosque committees, bringing Muslim cultural and religious institutions under direct state control. Outside of IAK, Kashmiri students in Uttar Pradesh suffered discrimination and harassment on campus.

This is an order that authorizes new legal holidays in Indian-administered Kashmir, including the birthday of Hari Singh (September 23) and "Accession Day" (October 26).  

‍Topics: change in laws in force, violation of international humanitarian law, violation of cultural rights, colonialism