In April 2023, Indian authorities continued to commit grave human rights violations in Indian-administered Kashmir. Indian forces killed at least two adults and one unborn child. At least one person was killed by unexploded ordnance. Indian authorities continued to suppress the right to freedom of expression, specifically targeting Kashmiri journalists. The Jammu & Kashmir administration continued its ongoing systematic campaigns to displace Kashmiris from, and dispossess them of, their residential, agricultural and commercial property on various pretexts. In developments with a disproportionate impact on IAK, Indian authorities continued their ongoing censoring and erasure of information that contradicts or challenges state-preferred narratives, including through revising textbooks to eliminate history and imposing government approvals over social media content about Indian authorities.

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).

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.

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.

Between September 29, 2022 and October 31, 2022, Indian authorities continued to commit grave human rights violations in Indian-administered Kashmir (IAK). At least one civilian was killed by Indian forces, and at least two Kashmiris died in police custody. Indian authorities continued their systematic suppression of the freedom of expression and violations of the social, economic, cultural, and political rights of Kashmiris. A journalist and a scholar were charged under counter-terror laws for an opinion piece published in 2011 while another journalist was barred from international travel without explanation. Another private school was forcibly closed. Kashmir’s 2022 apple crop was prevented from being transported to Indian markets, resulting in significant losses in a critical industry in IAK. Authorities escalated their violations of cultural and Muslim religious rights, including through newly-announced plans to interfere with sacred and cultural spaces. In a case emblematic of the repression against Kashmiri journalists, Aasif Sultan, arbitrarily detained on August 27, 2018, remains illegally imprisoned. In a case emblematic of the repression against Kashmiri human rights defenders and civil society, Khurram Parvez, arbitrarily detained on November 22, 2021, remains illegally imprisoned in a maximum-security facility in New Delhi. Due to ongoing repression by Indian authorities, key developments in the human rights situation in IAK have likely gone unreported.