This report documents the impacts of militarization in Indian-Administered Kashmir (IAK) in considerable detail. Based on applied research conducted between November 2006-2009, this report documents 2,700 unknown, unmarked and mass graves containing 2,943+ bodies across 55 villages in Bandipora, Baramulla and Kupwara districts of IAK. The report also documents how military and paramilitary actions (6,67,000 personnel) act with legal impunity in IAK. Through organizing deception, Kashmiri Muslim men are posed as agents in cross-border armed militant negotiations, as harbingers of violence to Kashmiri Muslim women and the Indian nation. Official state discourse conflates cross-border militancy with present nonviolent struggles by local Kashmiri groups (and separatist leaders with divergent positions), portraying local
resistance as “terrorist” activity.
Topics: graves, explanations - crimes against humanity, concerns, mass graves, political situation, people’s tribunal, kupwara, baramulla and bandipora districts, encounters and fake encounters- an index, recommendations
Terms: organized lying, state propaganda, fake encounters, encounter killings, psychological warfare, extrajudicial killings, mass graves, unmarked graves, legalized impunity, denial of access to justice, Central Reserve Police Force, Village Defence Committees, extrajudicial killing of minors, custodial torture, custodial rape, excessive use of force, illegal occupation of land, gendered violence, orphans
In claiming these bodies as uniformly “foreign militants/terrorists,” state discourse exaggerates the presence of external groups and cross-border infiltration. State discourse positions cross-border infiltration as critical to mobilizing and sustaining local struggles for territorial and political self-determination. This refutes the contention of Kashmiris that their struggles for self-determination have, through history and the present, been local and endemic.
In instances of “encounter” killings, which have later been verified as “fake encounter” deaths, security forces have manufactured the identities of victims, and entered into record a list of arms and ammunition being carried by them. On April 29, 2007, for example, armed forces claimed the killing of four militants of the Lashkar-e-Toiba. Three of the four male bodies were buried in Sedarpora village in Kandi area, Kupwara district. The bodies were brought to local community members by the police, and local community members were required by the police to bury them.
In maintaining an undeclared conflict, India’s militarization in Kashmir is justified as necessary to securing the India-Pakistan border, and, as such, having no brutalizing impact that is internal to Kashmir. India’s militarization is portrayed as an “internal” matter, while refusing transparency, international scrutiny, and adherence to international standards and customary practises of conflict and war. Internal use of force is explained as the eradication of “anti-national elements” within Kashmir society that collude with cross-border groups. These anti-national elements are seen as dangerous to themselves and as undermining of India’s national interest. Kashmiris are given the directive of proving their allegiance to the Indian nation through assimilation and dissociation from efforts of self-determination.
India’s security forces have occupied 10,54,721 kanals of land in Indian-held Jammu and Kashmir. On this land, 671 security camps have been established in Kashmir. The structure and placement of the camps enforce contact between women, children, and security forces and create contexts in which gendered violence is regularized. The widespread use of torture in detention camps and interrogation centres, in particular against men and male youth, has impacted 60,000+. As many as 1,00,000 have been orphaned.
November 2009
Originally published
Photo creditDownload (PDF)Download Here