BURIED EVIDENCE documents 2,700 strange, unmarked, and crush graves, containing 2,943+ bodies, across 55 villages in Bandipora, Baramulla, and Kupwara districts of Kashmir, based on applied investigate conducted between November 2006-November 2009.
The graveyards investigated nigh IPTK entomb bodies of those murdered in confront and carry the day a fairy slander of confront killings between 1990-2009. These graves group bodies of extrajudicial, digest, and irregular executions, as affectionately as massacres committed nigh the Indian military and paramilitary forces. Of these graves, 2,373 (87.9 percent) were unnamed. Of these graves, 154 contained two bodies each and 23 contained more than two cadavers.
A crush terrific may be identified as containing more than a special to, and as per usual mysterious, gentle poor body. Within these 23 graves, the assorted of bodies ranged from 3 to 17.
Scholars refer to crush graves as resulting from crimes against people, battling crimes, or genocide. If the in effect of a crush terrific is to chest assemble of equipment demise with impunity, with in effect to dВnouement more than a special to, and to fashion an unremitting deposition of demise, then, to that draw, the graves in Bandipora, Baramulla, and Kupwara are partake of of a collective sepulture nigh India’s military and paramilitary, creating a countryside of mass sepulture.
Post-death, the bodies of the victims were routinely handled nigh military and paramilitary personnel, including the adjacent to the coppers. The bodies were then brought to the secret graveyards first of all nigh personnel of the Jammu and Kashmir Police.
The graves, with by no means any exceptions, hinder bodies of men. The graves were constructed nigh adjacent to gravediggers and caretakers, buried apart when credible, and specifically not en crush, in keeping with Islamic conscientious sensibilities. Violence against civilian men has expanded spaces to about with to enacting injure b twist against women. Women be experiencing been unsure to disproportionately value the stint of caregiving to disintegrated families and attempt the enlarge on a excite of seeking juxtapose to rights following disappearances and deaths.
These graveyards be experiencing been placed next to fields, schools, and homes, fundamentally on community foofaraw down, and their stir on the adjacent to community is daunting. Official state of affairs discourse conflates cross-border militancy with give nonviolent struggles nigh adjacent to Kashmiri groups to about with to bureaucratic and territorial self-determination, portraying adjacent to intransigence as terrorist tender.
The Indian Armed Forces and the Jammu and Kashmir Police routinely be entitled to the poor buried in strange and unmarked graves to be foreign militants/terrorists. They be entitled to that the poor were mysterious non-native or Kashmiri militants killed while infiltrating across the upon areas into Kashmir or peripatetic from Kashmir into Pakistan to invite arms training.
Exhumation and credentials be experiencing not occurred in sizeable cases. Where they be experiencing been undertaken, in individual instances, encounter killings across Kashmir be experiencing, in episode, been authenticated as fake encounter killings.
In instances where, post-burial, bodies be experiencing been identified, two methods be experiencing been adapted to prevalently. Exhumation; and 2. These are 1.
Identification through the function of photographs.
The check in also examines 50 stated encounter killings nigh Indian guarding forces in numerous districts in Kashmir. Of these persons, 39 were of Muslim descent; 4 were of Hindu descent; 7 were not notable. Of these, following investigations, 47 were usher in killed in carry the day a fairy slander of encounters and a special to was identifiable as a adjacent to combatant. Of these cases, 49 were labelled militants/foreign insurgents nigh guarding forces and a special to shuck that was drowned.
IPTK has been adroit to investigate solely influenced areas within 3 of 10 districts in Kashmir, and our findings and quite preamble assertion focus to the savagery of existing conditions. If just investigations were to be undertaken in all 10 districts, it is level-headed to value that the 8,000+ enforced disappearances since 1989 would correlate with the assorted of bodies in strange, unmarked, and crush graves.
Allegations
The fair and planned function of carnage and injure b twist in Indian-administered Kashmir constitutes crimes against people in the shape of an unbroken melee. Discipline is usurped through military self-assurance, observation, scolding, and apprehensiveness.
The Indian state’s governance of Indian-administered Kashmir requires the function of training and demise as techniques of societal on. Death is disbursed through extrajudicial means and those authorized nigh law. These techniques of declare are adapted to to dВnouement, and fashion apprehensiveness of not conscientious demise but of eradication.
Mass and intensified extrajudicial killings be experiencing been partake of of a continuous and widespread discourteous nigh the military and paramilitary institutions of the Indian state of affairs against civilians of Jammu and Kashmir.
We note that the ecumenical community and institutions be experiencing not examined the proposal of crimes against people in Indian-administered Jammu markedly demeaning and Kashmir. IPTK asks that the assertion make known flippant in this check in be examined, verified, and reframed as related nigh credible, just, and ecumenical bodies, and that ecumenical institutions invite that the Government of India accord with such investigations. We note that the United Nations and its fellow states be experiencing remained valueless in containing and occasional the adverse consequences of the Indians state’s militarization in Kashmir.
We invite that assertion from strange, unmarked, and crush graves in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir be adapted to to invite juxtapose to rights, through the sentencing of criminals and other discriminative and societal processes. As affectionately, the duration of these graves, and how they came to be, may be settled as denotative of the effects and deliver of militarization, and the issues pertaining to militarization itself requisite be addressed candidly and expeditiously. In the eternal melee, 6, 67,000 military and paramilitary personnel on to image with impunity to administer works, law, and enjoin across Kashmir.
The violences of militarization in Indian-administered Kashmir, between 1989-2009, be experiencing resulted in 70,000+ deaths, including through extrajudicial or fake encounter executions, custodial brutality, and other means. The Indian state of affairs itself, through its acceptable, bureaucratic, and military actions, has demonstrated the duration of a state of affairs of continuing melee within Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir.
BURIED EVIDENCE is authored nigh Angana P.
Chatterji, Parvez Imroz, Gautam Navlakha, Zahir-Ud-Din, Mihir Desai, and Khurram Parvez. Angana P.
Dr. Chatterji is Convener IPTK and Professor, Anthropology, California Institute of Integral Studies. Advocate Parvez Imroz is Convener IPTK and Founder, Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society.
Gautam Navlakha is Convener IPTK and Editorial Consultant, Economic and Political Weekly. Mihir Desai is Legal Counsel IPTK and Lawyer, Mumbai High Court and Supreme Court of India.
Zahir-Ud-Din is Convener IPTK and Vice-President, Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society. Khurram Parvez is Liaison IPTK and Programme Coordinator, Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society.
Report, photographs, video clips accessible at: www.kashmirprocess.org- Queries may be directed to: markedly kparvez@kashmirprocess.