The human rights body of Jammu and Kashmir has ordered a probe into the alleged “disappearance” of more than 600 people since 1989 when militancy took off, leaving thousands of broken families in one of the most militarised zones in the world.
The Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission (JKSHRC) passed an order on Thursday asking its police wing to the probe the alleged disappearance of 639 people and submit a report within three months. The commission’s Senior Superintendent of Police will lead the probe.
The Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP), which is pursuing the case with the rights body, says that more than 8,000 people are missing in the Valley since 1989, most of them from custody of security forces besides “non-state and unknown actors”, a reference to militant outfits.
Advertisement
According to the Indian government, an estimated 50,000 people, including security forces and militants, have been killed in Kashmir though separatists put the number at more than 90,000.
In separate petitions, the APDP reported 132 cases of disappearance from different villages of Banihal tehsil in Jammu’s Ramban district and 507 cases of disappearance from Baramulla and Bandipora districts in Kashmir.
The police and civil administration admit to the disappearance of only 298 out of the 639 people mentioned by the APDP.
“Today’s (Thursday’s) order serves as an important milestone in the ongoing struggle of APDP to know the truth about the disappeared and to ensure justice for each and every person subject to enforced disappearance,” a statement by the APDP said.
Advertisement
It quoted a recent report by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights which noted India’s refusal to ratify the convention against enforced disappearances and observed that “Impunity for enforced or involuntary disappearances in Kashmir continues as there has been little movement towards credibly investigating complaints, including into alleged sites of mass graves in the Kashmir Valley and Jammu region”.
“It is in this context of absolute refusal of the Indian State to acknowledge the phenomenon of enforced disappearance, that today’s order must be seen. The SHRC police enquiry is an opportunity for the families of the disappeared to place on record the truth of their loved ones, the circumstances of their disappearance and the refusal of the State to find the disappeared and ensure justice,” the statement added.
